About NDTMS
Background to NDTMS
The National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) captures data about structured drug treatment at tiers 3 and 4 (i.e. structured community-based services, or residential and inpatient services) for those individuals whose drug use has become problematic. Data on the numbers of people presenting to services with problem drug misuse were collected until 2001 via the Regional Drug Misuse Databases (RDMDs) in England. In 2001, the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (NTA) was established as a Special Health Authority to improve the availability, capacity and effectiveness of treatment for drug misuse in England. It was given targets of doubling the number of people in treatment and to increase the percentage of those successfully completing or appropriately continuing treatment year on year. In order to achieve these targets, it was recognised that consistent and accurate information about people who were accessing specialist drug treatment was needed and following a strategic review of the structure and operation of the RDMDs, the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) was established from 1st April 2001 to provide a consistent and uniform data collection system in England and Wales and to replace the paper-based and locally-managed, RDMDs of the 1990’s.
On 1st April 2003, responsibility for managing the NDTMS was transferred from the Department of Health to the NTA. They replaced the data collection method with a system where treatment services submit an electronic core data set of their patient information. Codes and definitions for core data sets can be found via the NEPHO website http://www.northeastpho.org.uk/ndtms/agencies/resources/archive. During 2004-05 a monthly data collection process was implemented which became fully operational from April 2005. Subsequently, the NTA reorganised the NDTMS, bringing the definition of drug treatment recorded by the system further into line with Models of Care for the Treatment of Adult Drug Misusers: Updated 2005 and 2006. It also rearranged the operational structure in line with Government Office organisation. In six of the nine English regions, operation of the NDTMS now resides within Public Health Observatories. The NDTMS figures for England are collated by the National Drug Evidence Centre (NDEC) with those for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland into a UK return for use by the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction and for the United Nations.
NDTMS statistics are used across a number of government departments. As an official National Statistic, reporting and use of the data must comply with the National Statistics Code of Practice.
Initially, NDTMS collected patient data on first presentation and review data was only captured on 31st March for each patient; in 2003-04 only the last episode of treatment in the year was included and such reporting was voluntary. By 2004-05, all episodes were being reported and there was a requirement for all publicly-funded services to provide data. Electronic data collection procedures were established across all of the NE and most areas elsewhere. From 2006-07, having already been modified to support the receipt of data from young people’s services for all substance misuse (drug, alcohol and solvents) the database was expanded to include new items such as age at first use of primary drug, date first appointment offered, general healthcare assessment date and support for full postcode provision. In October 2007, the Treatment Outcome Profile (TOP) fields were added which gathers information from people about their illicit drugs use, injecting behaviour, criminal activity and health and social-functioning at various stages of their treatment journey. On 1st April 2008 completion of NDTMS data became a requirement of all publicly funded specialist adult alcohol treatment services – subsequently amended to a ‘minimum’ data set referred to as NATMS (National Alcohol Monitoring Treatment System).
The NDTMS system was designed to monitor and assist the management of progress towards the Government’s targets for participation in drug treatment programmes and includes those who have been assessed (triaged) although the focus for adult drug services is now on those who have commenced and been in structured treatment for 12 weeks. Data is available at an agency, DAT, regional and national level. The data also provides detailed decision-making information for the Needs Analysis process which is integral to treatment planning and commissioning.
Publicly-available, monthly figures are available at an agency, DAT, PCT, regional and national level from NDTMS on the NDEC website: www.NDTMS.net. This website also has additional reports available to planners and commissioners of drug and alcohol treatment services but access to these additional reports requires authorisation which can be requested on the website.
