Government policy, running through the 10-Year Drug Strategy, "Tackling Drugs to Build a Better Britain and the New Drug Misuse Clinical Guidelines," highlights the need for health authorities to invest in shared care mechanisms to support primary care in its task of caring for drug misusers. This paper describes a model of primary care-based shared care service, the Consultancy Liaison Addiction Service, that has been in operation for 5 years in South London. The service comprises a team of drug and alcohol community psychiatric nurses, supported and managed by a principal in general practice. Together they have worked with 72 neighboring general practices, supporting the treatment of alcohol-misusing and drug-misusing patients. The team has a separate identity from, but is closely integrated into, the secondary specialist addiction service producing an effective continuum of care. The article concludes that the Service has developed close cooperation among all providers and represents true shared care among primary, secondary and the non-statutory sectors. Table, references