The caseloads are ludicrous & I walked out on £40k job for the sake of my mental health

BURNT-OUT drug workers are being driven from their jobs by huge and “impossible” case loads.

- BY MARK McGIVERN

The Daily Record has spoken to a key worker at Glasgow City Alcohol and Drug Partnership (ADP), who claims the failure of the five-year, £250million “National Mission” to turn around the overdose death crisis is rooted in how money is spent at local authority level.

One whistleblower told us how they quit after being driving to despair by a caseload that meant most addicted clients would get “less than minimum” service at a time of critical need.

The worker, who dealt with access to treatment in Glasgow, said they had been forced to take on a caseload of 25 clients but might be able to give meaningful help to just two or three of them in some weeks.

It is claimed that ADP staff could then have up to 50 people on their caseload, with half of them regarded as “chaotic” and needing immediate hands-on help to prevent a high risk of overdose death.

The whistleblower claimed that, on a recent count, a staggering nine out of 16 workers at Glasgow City ADP were off sick, due to stress.

The latest condemnation of the five-year National Mission, which ends in the coming months, comes after claims by Professor Catriona Matheson, former head of the Scottish Drug Death Taskforce, who accused the Scottish Government of ignoring her work and putting politics before saving lives.

The insider said: “To be blunt, I couldn't take any more and I walked out on a job that paid more than £40k, for the sake of my own mental health.

“The caseloads are ludicrous. With each client we have 12 weeks to carry out assessments on whether they've got kids, whether they're getting home visits to see their standard of living, linking in with criminal justice or other services they're open to.

“And then we're passing them on to our core team. In the core team things get crazy. Each of those workers has a caseload of 50 people and that might include 20 who are stable and 20 who are chaotic.