IMPLEMENTING MAT STANDARDS

Local responsibility

Under a Ministerial Direction issued on 23 June 2022 local NHS boards, integration authorities and local authorities have been tasked with implementing the MAT standards in their local area.  These bodies will produce and work to a local improvement plan for implementing the standards.  The improvement plan is signed by all chief executives and chief officers who have shared and visible responsibility for ensuring the required changes are made.  A single senior leader is responsible for ensuring changes are made and regularly reporting to the Scottish Government on progress.

National support for implementation

The MAT implementation programme is a multidisciplinary initiative hosted by Public Health Scotland (PHS) on behalf of the Scottish Government and includes representation from the PHS Drugs team and MAT Implementation Support Team (MIST), as well as a range of other partners.

The MIST team were set up to provide practical support for the implementation of the standards across the country. The main work of MIST is to help Alcohol and Drug Partnerships (ADPs) improve services. It does this directly by helping to bring in and evaluate new changes, as well as indirectly through running national groups and networks, collecting the evidence that is used to benchmark progress, and helping to disseminate shared learning across all 29 ADP areas.

The MIST team and other PHS staff are in regular contact with the coordinators and members of Alcohol and Drug Partnerships who meet weekly as the MAT Implementation Network (MATSIN).

Scottish Drugs Forum works to ensure stakeholders, including people who lived experience of a drug problem, their families and advocates; frontline staff working with and supporting people with a drug problem and people who plan, commission, manage and deliver drug treatment services have the information resources they require to implement MAT.