The dissemination of the MAT standards project from 2021/2023.

In April 2021, REACH began a partnership project with Public Health Scotland (PHS) to deliver education and training on the new Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) standards to lived/ living experienced individuals and staff from statutory and non statutory services.

The MAT standards make up part of the latest guidance from the Scottish Government to help achieve Scotland's National Mission of reducing drug related deaths and harms. According to it's definition, substance use disorders are a disease caused by developmental, biological, neuropsychological and psychological factors. With this being identified, the MAT standards attempt to address these contributing factors through setting out ten standards which not only outline pharmacological approaches to care, but also incorporate holistic areas of care, such as trauma informed practice, mental health support, advocacy and social support for patients.

To compliment this approach, and to ensure that these standards are baked into legislative frameworks, REACH disseminated this education and training on the MAT standards within a wider human rights based approach. To achieve effective dissemination, REACH developed a 1 day awareness workshop which focused on key topics such as; social factors contributing to substance use disorder as a health condition; Human Rights legislation; practical educational frameworks to use when applying a Human Rights Based Approach; as well as the MAT Standards themselves and how they aim to ensure that the human rights of individuals are upheld, fulfilled and protected.

Since 2021 to the present day, REACH have delivered this training to 835 participants across 16 localities in Scotland.

In addition to the content, REACH designed these awareness workshops to be delivered to a cross population of lived/ living experience individuals, families & communities, workforce and policy leads. REACH believe this cross population aspect to learning was imperative to effective implementation of these standards as those designing service policy are often not the individuals experiencing the service. Therefore, REACH worked to close this proximity gap, and promote collaborative working by having patients, staff members and policy makers all present in the same learning space.

From these 1 day awareness workshops, REACH have collated experiential data from participants on the challenges to MAT implementation as well as the areas of good practice. We look forward to sharing the outcomes of this project through the experiential and qualitive data that REACH have gathered. We hope our upcoming independent report from this project will aid any further work on the implementation of the MAT standards and support the ongoing efforts to protect the rights of patients.