A DRUG ‘worse than spice', which causes users to become incredibly violent and dampens their perception of pain, is making life difficult for the mental health team based at Royal Bolton Hospital.
The mental health assessment team, which works in A&E, has to deal with ‘really violent’ patients who are difficult to get under control, according to Bolton health chief Barry Silvert.
Dr Silvert raised his concerns at the most recent Bolton Clinical Commissioning Group board meeting while giving a report on the performance of Royal Bolton Hospital.
Dr Silvert, who sits on the CCG board as clinical director for integrated commissioning, said: “We want to understand the problems they are facing, particularly in respect of the new legal highs.
“Monkey Dust, apparently does even worse things to patients than spice, they have had a number of really serious difficulties managing those patients, they become really violent and are really difficult to get under control.
“I think we have to be concerned for the mental health services and there are concerns about the safety of staff.”
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Dr Silvert was speaking while addressing the work that the rapid assessment, interface and discharge service (RAID) does at A&E and was praising the staff for their hard work under difficult circumstances.
The RAID team have been exceeding their targets despite the difficult job they do assessing patients at A&E who might be suffering with mental health issues, supporting regular A&E staff whose focus is treating physical symptoms and injuries.
RAID is tasked with seeing 75 per cent of its A&E emergency referrals within an hour of them arriving in the department and in June the figure was 86.7 per cent.
Dr Silvert said: “I think services are very stretched and this figure is really commendable in the view of the pressures RAID is under.”
RAID has been exceeding its target since December 2017. Its best month was February this year when the team saw 90 per cent of its referrals in an hour.
Dr Silvert’s concerns about Monkey Dust come after months of problems with another synthetic drug Spice.
Spice is designed to act like cannabis while Monkey Dust mimics the effects of amphetamines like Speed.
Back in April last year The Bolton News reported on the prevalence of Spice in the town centre.
At the time a paramedic said Spice was “rife” in the town centre and many members of the homeless community have been treated by the ambulance service after taking the drug which can leave people in a zombie-like state.
A paramedic said: “The thing is there’s no antidote to it.
“If someone has taken heroin we can do something to reverse the effects, but with Spice there’s nothing that can be done.
“Half the time we don’t have a clue what we’re dealing with. There’s no list of ingredients, but generically it’s known as Spice.”
Spice hit the newspapers nationally because of the number of people in Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester who have been caught on camera in zombie-like states.
One couple, believed to be high on Spice, were caught on camera having sex in the middle of Piccadilly Gardens in broad daylight. Spice has been linked to deaths on the street and like Monkey Dust is available very cheaply making it tempting for people on limited incomes.
As Spice became a big problem in the centre of Manchester, Greater Manchester Police (GMP) ramped up their operation, dedicating specially trained officers to try and combat the issues and help those using Spice to access the support they need.
Work was also done to educate people on the dangers of the drug. At the height of the problem GMP received 58 Spice-related calls in three days.
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