Occupational health practitioners must consider how they can better support employees recovering from drug addiction and remove some of the risks that prevent many reaching out for help.
This is according to government workplace health advisor Professor Dame Carol Black, who encouraged the occupational health professionals who attended the 2022 Ruth Alston Memorial Lecture to play a more active and supportive role in individuals’ recovery from addiction.
Dame Carol said that her independent review of drugs, which was commissioned to help shape government policy around tackling the harm that both legal and illegal drugs cause, had highlighted the factors that can hamper a person’s recovery.
The review, which was published in two parts (part one and part two), found that employment was an essential part of a person’s recovery from addiction, both for financial stability and to offer something meaningful to do.
“People in treatment and recovery frequently experience stigma, and employers are often wary of hiring people with histories of drug and alcohol misuse,” Dame Carol said.
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She indicated that having a job meant that somebody recovering from addiction had a better chance of completing treatment, but claimed only one in five were in employment.
More work needed to be done to “de-risk” the act of asking for addiction support at work, said Dame Carol. Individuals sometimes feared that asking for help would harm their job prospects or lead to dismissal, or they would face negative stigma if they revealed their history.
“We need to think about what occupational health can do to help,” she encouraged the profession.“Because at the moment they’re treated like lepers and that needs to change.”
Dame Carol’s review highlighted how beneficial the individual placement and support (IPS) scheme had been for people with mental health conditions and how a trial within treatment services in seven areas had show that the model could also be successful in getting people in drug and alcohol treatment back into work.
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She also emphasised the role that clinical care, trauma-informed support and housing support could play in a person’s recovery, and urged more “joined up thinking” around supporting people undergoing drug treatment between government departments.
“For many people, mental health problems and trauma lie at the heart of their drug and alcohol dependence. Commissioners of substance misuse services and NHS mental health services must either provide a better pathway between the services or integrate their services. Above all, the workforce in both services need to be trained to deliver more and higher-quality psychosocial interventions,” said Dame Carol’s review.
