The number of drug addicts in the district getting treatment is the third-highest in the UK, new figures reveal.

Bradford Drugs Action Team (DAT) - now called the Safer Communities Partnership - is topped only by Birmingham and Lancashire in the figures from the National Treatment Agency (NAT), which show the number of addicts who received treatment in 2003/04 from England's 149 DATs.

Bradford DAT treated 3,021 people - more than in any of London's 33 separate DATs and more than Leeds, which treated 2,453 addicts.

The number has almost doubled from 2001-02 when 1,861 addicts received treatment, but health chiefs stress the figures have since been collated in a different way and do not offer an accurate comparison.

Experts say the figures from the National Treatment Agency, which oversees the teams, do not mean Bradford has a worse drug problem than anywhere else - but that it is better at dealing with it.

Bradford area drugs co-ordinator Detective Sergeant Colin Stansbie said: "It would be rubbish to say these figures mean we have one of the worst drugs problem in the country.

"They do show we have a problem. But the number of drug misusers is a hidden figure because everyone who is misusing is not necessarily accessing treatment. There is no database of drug misusers in this country. The only figures we can ever capture are the ones in treatment.

"In Bradford, services have expanded and we are offering far better services than a few years ago. The good news for Bradford is on the drugs treatment side because there are services that large numbers of people are accessing. This has to be good news for all the drug treatment agencies in the districts. If more people are getting into treatment, it has to have an effect on crime."

The figures revealed Bradford has one of the lowest drop-out rates, with 73 per cent of misusers staying in treatment for 12 weeks or more.

Yvonne Oliver, chief executive of Ripple Drugs Services which runs a dependency clinic in Buttershaw, said: "This is a brilliant figure. It shows we are getting people into treatment and they are staying in treatment. If they are in treatment they are not committing as much crime. Anyone who wants to get into treatment in Bradford can."

Earlier this week, treatment for drug and alcohol misuse across the district was boosted by more than £2 million of extra Government cash for two years from 2006.

The chairman of the Safer Communities executive, Alan Dalton, said: "Bradford is getting more drug users into treatment, getting them in quickly and keeping them in treatment. This is a tribute to the quality of our drug services and their staff."