Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the research published in July 2015 in <i>Addiction</i> on the payment by results drug recovery pilots, what advice they plan to issue to public health directorates on the commissioning of drug treatment services.

The Department of Health-funded independent evaluation of the drugs and alcohol recovery payment by results pilots programme has yielded several interim reports to date and is currently drawing to a conclusion. We will wait for this report to ensure that any advice is based upon the fullest and best available evidence.

The article published in Addiction is an early output from the evaluation, based on data collected during the first year of the drugs and alcohol recovery payment by results pilots programme. The final evaluation report, which is due in late August 2015, is expected to be published in late Autumn 2015 following an independent peer review process.