Residential rehabilitation: status report on current levels of capacity

2. Methodology

An email survey was sent to all residential rehabilitation providers in Scotland. Residential rehabilitation providers were identified as part of the working group's mapping exercise in December 2020^[1]. Since this time, additional rehabilitation providers have been identified and so this list has been revised for the purposes of this research. Residential rehabilitation was defined, as per the mapping report, as facilities offering programmes which aim to support individuals to attain an alcohol or drug-free lifestyle and be re-integrated into society, and which provide intensive psychosocial support and a structured programme of daily activities which residents are required to attend over a fixed period of time. This survey was designed to be able to provide a cross-sectional snapshot of the residential rehabilitation national landscape. Questions were developed in brief consultation with key stake holders, including rehabilitation providers.

The survey comprised of 7 questions (see Appendix B), including questions on maximum capacity and the number of placements currently filled. In addition, the survey also asked 3 open text questions on how capacity may be increased in the short-, medium-, and longer term according to the individual providers. Service providers were asked to email back their response within a three day window. Due to the short timescales surrounding this work, providers who had not completed the survey were contacted by a member of the analytical team to ensure they had opportunity to be included in this research. As such, the survey was supplemented by a number of phone interviews. Data on service demographics and type were previously gathered as part of the mapping exercise and linked to survey responses.

Data was collected between the 3^rd and 8^th of February 2021.