Almost half the beds in leading residential drug rehabilitation units are lying empty as more addicts are channelled into cheaper methadone-based treatment, The Times has learnt.

Up to 1,200 beds are unoccupied across England with famous names in drug rehabilitation including Clouds, Adapt, Phoenix Futures and Yeldall Manor all reporting difficulties in filling places.

They have accused local Drug Action Teams, which control the purse strings, of choosing cheaper forms of treatment for hardened drug addicts such as methadone to meet government targets, even though it is far less effective.

The most recent research, conducted by Glasgow University’s Centre for Drug Misuse, found the methadone programme in Scotland had been a failure, with only 3 per cent of addicts kicking the habit.

The study has shown that the vast majority of addicts on the £6.5 million-a-year heroin-replacement programme were still taking illegal drugs years later. Yet almost one-third of addicts who underwent treatment at a residential rehabilitation centre became drug-free over a similar period.

Residential centres treat some of the most serious drug addicts, taking almost all their referrals from the police, courts and prison service. Ultimately they are dependent on funding from social services, primary care trusts and the new National Treatment Agency for substance misuse.

Funding from local authority social services budgets, which are not ring-fenced, have been cut drastically. This year has also seen a drop in patients funded by primary care trusts as they struggle with deficits.

Drug Action Teams, funded by the National Treatment Agency, should be making up the shortfall. But they have been forced to get hundreds more addicts on to methadone and into less intensive day-centre care in order to meet agency targets to cut waiting times.

As a result, many residential centres are facing severe financial problems. Clouds, which has an estate in Wiltshire, reports occupancy rates of below 50 per cent and has already made some staff redundant.

Brian Arbery, chief executive of Adapt, said it was “absurd” when prisons were overflowing that his organisation was struggling to stay afloat: “Ultimately it is the Home Office that will pay the price for short-sighted targeting.”

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