A MAJOR consultation is set to begin as Wirral council prepares to re-commission its drug and alcohol treatment services.

The authority is set to tender for a new integrated Drug and Alcohol Treatment and Recovery system for the area. This will include a greater focus on supporting more people to achieve recovery.

It commissions a wide range of services aimed at treating local people who misuse drugs or alcohol and supporting them to sustain their recovery and abstinence.

The re-commissioning of Wirral's Drug and Alcohol Treatment and Recovery Services aims to put new energy into the system and increase the numbers of service users who successfully recover.

The borough was ranked 143rd out of 149 local authorities for the level of premature deaths due to liver disease in the recently produced Longer Lives report.

The consultation programme will involve meetings with elected members, key strategic leads, current and potential service providers, service users and carers.

Fiona Johnstone, Wirral's director of public health, said: "Our aim when commissioning services is always to support innovation, and to find new and more efficient ways of improving the health of our communities.

"It is of paramount importance that we speak to our staff, partners and service users when designing services, to ensure that they represent value for money as well as effectiveness.

"Our services cover all kinds of areas including Community Engagement and Outreach, Harm Reduction, Specialist Treatment and Relapse Prevention and Recovery, and these are now being successfully integrated with the wider set of community services.

"We have a real opportunity to achieve valuable benefits from this greater integration of our services."

The new system is proposed to take effect in early 2015.