MPs call for funding for axed Middlesbrough heroin addiction clinic

Danny Ahmed set up the Middlesbrough clinic in October 2019

A ground-breaking clinic for people with heroin addiction should be funded for the rest of the financial year, a prominent committee of MPs has said.

Middlesbrough's Heroin Assisted Treatment (HAT) programme is to close due to lack of money.

The Home Affairs Select Committee said it was "united in our disappointment" at the scheme's closure.

It had reduced drug use, helped move addicts away from criminality, and disrupted organised crime, it said.

Labour MP Dame Diana Johnson, who chairs the committee, and Conservative MPs James Daly, Tim Loughton Simon Fell, and SNP MP Stuart McDonald all visited the project and said they saw first-hand how patients' lives had been transformed.

In a letter to the Home Office they said: "The treatment given, albeit to a comparatively small group of people, is clearly effective in changing their lives and behaviours, and the lessons that might be learned for the wider UK from this near-unique facility will be lost."

With UK drug deaths increasing it was important such programmes continued, received sufficient financial support, and were potentially replicated elsewhere, it said.

A Home Office spokesperson said "local funding decisions are made by local authorities".

Cleveland's Police and Crime Commissioner Steve Turner axed funds for the scheme last year

HAT was the first scheme of its kind in England when it opened in 2019.

Its pilot funding was provided by the former Labour Cleveland Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Barry Coppinger but his successor Conservative PCC Steve Turner decided not to renew it when he was elected last year.

South Tees Public Health and Project Adder provided stopgap funds but can no longer support it.

Mr Turner said the focus should be on preventing drug dependency before it develops to "prevent the need for schemes such as heroin-assisted treatment in the first place", the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

His spokesperson said there were fewer than 10 patients using the scheme.

Former drug addict James Fowler was able to go to college after help from HAT

Clinicians described the decision to end funding as "ludicrous".

The north-east of England has the highest rate of drug-related deaths in the country, according to figures released by the Office for National Statistics, and Middlesbrough's death rate is up 80% since 2017.

Former addict James Fowler had been using heroin and crack cocaine and had spent time in prison before being introduced to HAT.

The 41-year-old is now a student at Middlesbrough College and said he was "so much more at peace with where I am now".