Contact information

Source of referral to the reporting agency

Information on the source of referral for each patient/client is presented in Table 9. A Scotland level summary is shown below.

Source of referral In 1997/98, of the 8228 individuals whose source of referral was reported, 41 per cent were referred to the reporting agency by a General Practitioner. A further 39 per cent were self referrals.

Location of initial contact and initial assessment

Agency staff may make initial contact with drug users in a variety of settings, not always at the agency itself. Information on the locations where the initial contacts and assessments are made, providing a snapshot into the way services for drug users are delivered, is presented in Tables 10 and 11. This information is obtained from non­medical (SMR23) forms only.

In 1997/98, of the 4367 individuals where this information was provided, nearly two thirds (65 per cent) of initial contacts were made in person at the agency itself. Twenty­one per cent of initial contacts were made over the telephone (Table 10).

Four out of five (81 per cent) initial assessments were carried out at the agency ­ a proportion identical to that reported in 1996/97. Six per cent of the initial assessments were carried out in the home of the patient/client, mainly in the more rural areas of Scotland (Table 11).