WAITING LIST CRISIS HITS ADDICTS

HUNDREDS of drug addicts are facing potentially fatal delays in
treatment because of Scotland's waiting list crisis.

The Community Drug Problem Service in Edinburgh, the main drugs
referral centre for Lothian, is increasing its average waiting time
for treatment from four weeks to 12 weeks, Lothian Primary Care
Trust, which runs the Spittal Street service, confirmed last night.

The move is being blamed on insufficient funding to meet an
increasing patient caseload.

The service receives around 50 referrals a week and treats about
1,700 patients at any one time. It gets =A31 million a year from
Lothian NHS but last year recorded a =A3214,000 budget deficit, which
was absorbed by the trust.

Last night, doctors warned the delays were costing lives.

The criticism will come as a blow to the Scottish executive, which
only last year announced an extra =A3100 million funding for drug
treatment and which insists everything possible is being done to cut
death rates.

A total of 250 people died from drug-related illnesses and accidents
in Scotland last year.

News of the crisis also comes just days after First Minister Jack
McConnell found himself at the centre of an embarrassing row after
ordering a public sector watchdog to carry out an independent inquiry
into the management of NHS waiting lists.

His announcement, revealing that waiting lists in six NHS trusts were
not accepting patients, brought immediate accusations from the SNP
that the First Minister had misled the parliament over the issue.

Mr McConnell and health minister Malcolm Chisholm told MSPs last week
there was only one closed waiting list in Scotland, for child
psychiatric treatment in Edinburgh.

However, the two admitted this week that an audit of trusts showed
that six trusts had revealed restrictions to outpatients lists "in a
very small number of specialised areas".

Dr Roy Robertson, a GP at Muirhouse Medical Group, said the delays
would put patients' lives at risk. "A lack of funds in the right
place means that the CDPS is unable to develop its service to meet
the recent increase in need.

"Despite the fact that Susan Deacon announced =A3100 million for drugs
treatment services last year, the money is not filtering down to the
treatment programmes. Instead it appears to being spent on other
things, such as social work , childcare services and alcohol
depending programmes.

"The health minister promised that drugs treatment and Hepatitis C
sufferers would a top health priority but that is simply not being
borne out in practice.

"Drugs addicts cannot simply wait for treatment like perhaps people
waiting for hip operations have to."

David Pigott, chief executive of Lothian Primary Care Trust, insisted
there would be no delays in treating urgent cases. "Everything will
be done to ensure that urgent patients are treated as soon as
possible. Regrettably, non urgent cases will have to wait up to three
months instead of the current four weeks," he said.

Mr Pigott blamed the delays on the increasing patient caseload which
has more than doubled since 1997.

Nicola Sturgeon, SNP health spokeswoman, said the delays were further
evidence that the NHS in Scotland was at breaking point.

She said: "It's just another example of the serious underfunding in
the health service and its failure to deal with the increased demand
being placed on many of its vital services."