Why it's right to be cynical about Scottish Government's 'charter of rights' for drug users

John Swinney speaks at the launched of a new 'Charter of Rights for People Affected by Substance Use' in Glasgow (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell) | Getty Images

The 2011 Patient Rights Act created a legal requirement that NHS patients should receive treatment within 12 weeks of it being agreed. In the first six years of the law’s existence, it was broken nearly 120,000 times.

Earlier this year, 7,146 patients had been waiting longer than two years for treatment on an in-patient or day-case basis, with 1,324 waiting more than three years, and some unfortunate souls left languishing for up to seven.

Now the Scottish Government has embraced a new “Charter of Rights for People Affected by Substance Use 2024” – including “the right to life”, the “right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health”, and “freedom from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment” – amid the ongoing scandal over the shockingly high number of drug deaths in Scotland.

A world first

John Swinney said the charter “significantly strengthens our public health and human rights-based approach to substance use-related harms and, over time, it will contribute to significantly improving and saving lives”. The First Minister noted that the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights had recognised that the document was “the first of its kind in the world”.

Once again, here was Scotland leading the way towards a brighter future, or so we are supposed to believe. The grim reality is that Scotland's drug-deaths rate is by far the highest in Europe.

‘Make these rights real’

Last year 1,172 people died from drug use, up 12 per cent on the previous year. A Scottish Government analysis of police figures for suspected drug deaths between January and September this year suggested there was a seven per cent fall, but added that the numbers “remain at a high level”.

As we argued after Keir Starmer’s attempted relaunch featuring several “milestones” for his government to achieve, ministers should focus less on promising to do things and more on actually doing them.

Professor Alan Miller, who helped draw up the charter, said: “Let's all now make these rights real." Regrettably, we fear they may turn out to mean as much as those contained in the Patient Rights Act – ie, nothing at all.