Cardiff Addiction services under-funded - Randerson

10.36.18am BST (GMT +0100) Thu 3rd Jul 2008

Jenny Randerson believes that addiction needs to be tackled urgently

Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Member for Cardiff Central today challenged the Minister for Social Justice to deal urgently with the overstretched services for people needing treatment for substance addiction in Cardiff. Services are under-funded and overstretched with waiting times for treatment being regularly missed.

Waiting times for the Community Addiction Unit in Cardiff are up to 47 weeks, making it all but impossible to tackle addiction. The current target is for treatment to be accessed in around 20 working days. Last year, waiting times were brought down to a maximum of 22 weeks due to a one off funding award of £176 000 from Cardiff and Vale Community Safety Partnership. Without ongoing funding of this level, waiting times will continue to rise.

There are currently 470 patients accessing CAU treatment and a further 225 in GP shared services.

Jenny Randerson said: "I challenged the Minister to urgently address this shortfall of services in Cardiff. The CAU has now closed its waiting lists to all patients apart from emergency cases and cases involving pregnant women.

"Without a more realistic approach to funding from the Welsh Assembly Government, there is no hope of the service getting anywhere near the targets that they are expected to meet.

"The waiting times are having a knock on effect by actively putting patients off from seeking help.

"This is a tragedy unfolding in our city and it urgently needs addressing."

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