Shared clients: Substance misuse agency clients in generic agencies

This paper reports on the method and the results of the Drug Tracking Project, a comprehensive multi-disciplinary database for social, health and criminal justice agencies. It analyses overlap between total agency populations and tracks the progress of all drug and alcohol agency clients in one county through a range of services to identify the sub-group of “revolving door” clients who re-use specialist and generic services. Data for the two years (Oct. 1996–98) for 97,162 cases show drug agency overlap of 44%, (n = 2139) and alcohol agency overlap of 54%, (n = 1639.). Of the population of “revolving door” clients (defined as those who attended four or five of types of service) 41% had also attended a drug and/or alcohol agency. The extent of drug and alcohol problems in selected populations was approximately two thirds, of which half received specialist treatment. The method has potential to inform multi-agency screening and co-working.