Getting started
A Swanswell worker and a GP will work together to provide you with treatment for your drug dependence. The doctor may prescribe medication and your Swanswell worker will offer support. You and your Swanswell worker will discuss how often you will meet.

Your treatment journey
Your journey through drug treatment will be individual to you. It will be tailored to meet your individual needs from your first appointment. Your treatment journey may include four areas:

• beginning treatment
• delivery of treatment (including maintenance)
• being part of the community
• end of treatment

Drug testing
You will need to take a drug test at your first visit with the Swanswell worker or GP. This helps us to decide with you what the best possible treatment for you will be.

Assessment
Your Swanswell worker will ask you for some information so that we can fully understand what you would like from us and find the best way of providing it for you. We then give a copy to your doctor. If we need to send it somewhere else, we will ask for your permission. Your worker will explain everything about confidentiality to you when you have your first meeting.

Supervised consumption
When you first start medication, you will usually go to the chemist each day to pick up your dose of medication and take this in front of a pharmacist. You do this to be safe and to help us to make sure you have the right amount that you need. You will start on a specific dose of medication, which is at a safe level. We may then alter this level, depending on your needs, until we have found the right dose for you.

Care planning
You will work with your Swanswell worker to complete a care plan that is individual to you. This will be looked at regularly with you. You and your Swanswell worker will set goals based on your assessment and plan how you can meet those goals. You will decide on some small changes together, in areas which will help you most. Your care plan will be a very important part of your drug treatment. Your worker will also give you advice and information, including how to reduce the harm caused by your drug use, information about prescribed medication and help to contact other agencies, if needed.

Support, guidance and advice
Your Swanswell worker will give you one-to-one support. They will work with you to decide what you need from us and the best way to give you this help and support. They will also work with your GP to meet health and substitute prescribing needs.

Your worker will give you advice on:

• reducing the harm caused by your drug use
• safer injecting
• alcohol screening
• healthy eating
• staying well after treatment

You will be able to access complementary therapies (e.g. auricular acupuncture, reiki) and receive information about vaccination and testing for blood borne viruses.

Contacting other helpful services
We will help you to contact other services that may be able to offer you further support and advice. This could include structured day care programmes, service user involvement groups, housing support, benefit advice, counselling, needle exchange advice, peer group support and advocacy. If you are receiving different services already, we will work together with other agencies to provide treatment that is tailored to your needs.

Moving on
When your treatment is coming to an end, your Swanswell worker will discuss ways that we may be able to assist you in the future. Your treatment with us may come to an end when you become drug free, or you may choose to stop treatment for other reasons. Regardless of why you might have left, if you wanted to return to the service we encourage you to re-contact us to find out what options are available. We try to keep you involved in treatment. This means if you miss an appointment and don't specifically tell us you want to leave treatment, we will contact you and offer you further appointments with a Swanswell worker.

We work with your GP, and if you are no longer seeing a Swanswell worker your doctor may not be able to continue to prescribe for you.

Returning to Swanswell for support
If you would like to come back for further support, you can call us or speak to your GP. Your GP can make an appointment for you to see a Swanswell worker who will re-assess your situation. If you have been seeing Swanswell as part of a court order, restrictions on bail or as a PPO (Prolific and Priority Offender), you will need to be referred back by Probation, DIP (Drug Intervention Programme) or your offender manager.

Click here for answers to common questions about drugs.

You can find out which pharmacies are on the Needle Exchange Scheme here (PDF).