About Us
Based in Belgravia, London, close to Victoria Station, we are a close team of doctors, counsellors, detox coordinator and secretary. We take pride in providing a personal, friendly, and accessible service to our clients and we have an unusually low staff turnover. The clinic is registered with the Health Care Commission to provide treatment for drug and alcohol misuse problems for people aged 18 years or over.
It was founded in 1986 by Dr Colin Brewer, a recognised, world-class addiction specialist, with the encouragement of the Home Office. The clinic pioneered the way in evidence-based addiction treatments including sensibly-dosed methadone maintenance programmes, naltrexone implants for relapse prevention, antagonist-induced rapid detox procedures and supervised oral Antabuse programmes. Several of these are now accepted treatments and officially encouraged but, at the time, they were not NHS policy.
You may be aware that Dr Brewer was removed from the medical register in 2006 following a high-profile investigation by the General Medical Council into practise at the Centre. It was the largest case in the 145 year history of the General Medical Council, involving seven doctors. Dr Brewer was deemed too liberal in his prescribing, too trusting of his patients and working outside the then current official guidelines of practice published by the Department of Health, that he believed were not adequate to meet many patients’ needs. In particular ‘the D-I-Y Home Opiate Detox package’, designed to be an inexpensive way for non-professional carers, advised by clinic staff, to manage a patient detox at home, saving on the often high costs of inpatient detox, was considered unsafe and too complex for lay people to manage at home. The GMC panel recognised Dr Brewer’s contribution to the scientific field of addiction and acknowledged the often poor provision of treatment available through some NHS units. Dr Brewer had formerly acted as an adviser to the GMC on matters of addiction. Many believe he was treated unjustly. He had retired from clinical practice some years earlier. The other six doctors remain on the medical register.
The Centre is now under the medical directorship of Dr Tovey, monitored by and incorporating clinical protocols approved by the General Medical Council, but still retaining much of the essence of the Stapleford approach. However, the ‘D-I-Y Detox’ package is no longer available.
We aim to provide safe, leading-edge, cost-effective, successful, evidence-based treatment to our patients. We aim to be flexible, considerate and balanced in our treatment delivery. We also aim to provide rapid access to treatment and get things moving on the first consultation if possible (often a rarity in addiction medicine).
We have been treating people for addiction problems for 20+ years and have a wealth of experience as a result. In particular we have more experience of naltrexone implants and oral naltrexone therapy, rapid opiate maintenance induction, rapid detox techniques and conversion between maintenance opiate programmes than any other service in the UK.
Fifteen or so years ago, we were detoxing people in the Royal Masonic Hospital in Chiswick at a psychiatric unit run by Cygnet Healthcare. The Hospital closed but the techniques we developed and used (and which were naturally observed by the nursing and managerial staff) were later employed, with a few changes, as the heavily marketed Detox 5 programme.
Around 2000, in recognition of its leading detox and maintenance experience, The Stapleford Centre was invited by the Home Office to advise on and modernise some of the high-security prison addiction treatment programmes. One result is the use of Subutex reduction now available in some prisons.
We retain an innovating, eclectic and patient-centred approach to addiction problems and are usually among the first in the field with effective new treatments or fresh approaches to old ones. We were the first organisation in the UK to offer naltrexone implants and supervised oral naltrexone programmes and the first in the private sector to offer supervised oral Antabuse programmes. The Stapleford Centre pioneered humane rapid opiate detox techniques.