NDTMS North East is one of the nine National Drug (and Alcohol) Treatment Monitoring System regional centres across England. It operates from within the North East Public Health Observatory (NEPHO) which is located at University of Durham, Queen’s Campus, Stockton on Tees.

The purpose of the NDTMS centres is to obtain detailed accurate and timely information for reporting drug and alcohol treatment activity. NDTMS is a development of the regional drug misuse databases (RDMDs), which had been in place since the late 1980s. Originally commissioned by the Department of Health DH, responsibility for the NDTMS centre services were handed over to the NTA in April 2003. Prior to the RDMDs there was also a Home Office 'Addicts Index' 1973-1997.

NEPHO has a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the National Treatment Agency (NTA) which commenced in April 2004 to run the collection of NDTMS data from across the North East region and provide support, guidance, analysis and training. Initially the database collected information about Adults in special Drug Treatment only, Young people were added to the database in 2005 and since 1st April 2008, the database has expanded to include Adult specialist alcohol treatment and our new SLA for 2008~11 incorporates this requirement.

NDTMS itself is the process of collecting, collating and analysing information from and for those involved in the drug and alcohol treatment sector. At its core, is a national database (an official National Statistic) which gathers data from all specialist drug and alcohol treatment services throughout England and provides information required by the highest levels of government to the local Drug Action Team and Primary Care Trust commissioners around such indicators as numbers of clients (both adults and young people) receiving specialist treatment, the types of interventions being offered to clients, how long clients spend waiting for and in treatment and the effectiveness of that treatment.

NDTMS is compliant with expectations of the Data Protection Act and also with the requirements of handling (potentially) patient identifiable data. Only those patients who give informed consent have some of their treatment data shared with NDTMS. In the North East, data is collected from over 160 agencies across 12 Drug Action Team areas.

What is in the Dataset and Who receives information?

All treatment agencies must provide a basic level of information to NDTMS on their activities each month. This includes: client information (such as age, sex, and ethnicity); treatment journey (such as referral, care plan and modality start and end dates), intervention modality and discharge reasons. There are also data on the service users’ substance misuse (such as drugs used and routes of administration) and questions around alcohol consumption. Further data covers a service users’ social and general well-being such as accommodation needs, pregnancy, children and parental status. Finally, a range of harm reduction data is collected such as Hepatitis B and C intervention status. Since 1st October 2007 the database has been expanded to include Treatment Outcome Profiles(TOP): this records changes to drug use, injecting status, criminality and general health and well-being as a result of contact with treatment services.

Regular reporting from NDTMS is made by the NTA to inform their review processes around the Adult Pooled Treatment Budget spend by Drug (and Alcohol) Action Teams (D(A)ATs). Currently monthly, quarterly and annual statistical reports are prepared and shared with all drug treatment service commissioners, usually D(A)ATs, for the purposes of performance monitoring and informing the needs analysis, planning and commissioning processes. Feedback and ad hoc reporting is also made to treatment providers to assist with their administrative and performance processes, by the regional NDTMS team.

Monthly statistics for Young People, Adults (both Drug and Alcohol treatment are available via http://www.NDTMS.net . The reporting is at national, SHA, PCT and provider-level and is mainly concerned with numbers in treatment during the course of the year. More detailed statistics are also available on this website in the Restricted Statistics section, however, these are intended only for those directly involved in the planning and commissioning of Drug and Alcohol services.