Drug Treatment Advocacy

Ensuring drug treatment is person-centred

What is Drug Advocacy?

Drug treatment services protect and improve many lives all around the country, particularly for people who receive substitute medications which guard against harms from being dependent on an increasingly toxic and unregulated illicit market. These services are not universally utilised by people who could benefit from them, in part because of the ways in which these services can work against individual patients and increase harm or distress. Possible treatment harms include abrupt dose reductions, involuntary medication switches, withdrawal of substitute prescribing, or rigid conditions (such as daily supervised consumption) that disrupt work and family life.

Because of the power imbalances between different workers and service users, members of the latter can also fear that speaking up when presented with an ill-fitting treatment plan could lead to losing their prescription or being discharged from the service entirely. Drug treatment advocacy exists to rebalance this dynamic and to improve treatment for everyone.

Release acts as an independent advocate and honest broker between workers and service users. We do not replace key working but we ensure service users have the right information and backing to establish a treatment plan that suits their lives and specific clinical needs. Our approach is about enabling a positive, sustainable therapeutic relationship with the local service as we know this is how the best results are achieved for the patient and the provider.

The Release Drug Advocacy Guides

Release has developed a comprehensive, two-part guide to help people in drug treatment, peer advocates, and front-line workers understand clinical guidelines, uphold rights, and resolve treatment obstacles.

Part One: The Principles

An accessible overview of how UK drug treatment works, the clinical standards treatment services are bound by, and the fundamental principles of self- and peer-advocacy.

  • Demystifying national clinical guidance (“The Orange Book”)
  • The P.E.R.S.O.N.A.L. framework for best practice in treatment
  • Client rights under the NHS Constitution and Equality Act 2010
  • Building effective, constructive advocacy relationships
Download Part One: The Principles (PDF) ↓

Part Two: The Manual

A practical, step-by-step action toolkit for overcoming real-world treatment obstacles, structured around Release’s G.E.A.R. advocacy methodology.

  • Step-by-step guides for 10+ common treatment disputes
  • Evidence gathering, meeting preparation, and letter templates
  • Direct citations from UK clinical guidelines to support your case
  • How to escalate issues through complaints and Ombudsman processes
Download Part Two: The Manual (PDF) ↓

Advocacy Training for Services & Workers

Release delivers interactive training programmes for drug and alcohol service workers, for service user forums, and for services which support people who might be using drugs but are not having their needs met by drug treatment services.

Our training demystifies the UK clinical management guidelines (“The Orange Book”) so that non-clinical workers and service users can understand, apply, and cite them effectively. When treatment services embrace an advocacy approach, engagement improves, premature drop-outs decline, and service outcomes are significantly enhanced.

Regional Advocacy Partnerships

While Release supports a variety of advocacy cases annually through our National Helpline, national reviews — including Dame Carol Black’s independent review of drugs — have highlighted that local treatment systems often lack independent accountability.

To bridge this gap, Release partners with local areas to establish Regional Advocacy Projects to support local people to hold services accountable. We aim to recruit, train, and mentor local people with lived or living experience to serve as advocates in their own communities — accompanying individuals to appointments, resolving local barriers, and feeding back systemic gaps to commissioners and providers.

If you are a local authority, commissioner, or community organisation interested in piloting a regional advocacy initiative, please get in touch.

Need Support with Drug Treatment?

If you or someone you know is having difficulty accessing drug treatment, facing an unwanted reduction in medication, or experiencing problems with a provider, our team is here to help.

Get Treatment Support & Advice →

Commission Training or Regional Advocacy

If you are interested in commissioning Release’s Drug Advocacy training for your staff or partnering with us to establish an advocacy initiative in your region, contact Keith Edwards:

Email Keith Edwards →