While a recovery approach is widespread and relatively unquestioned in the USA, its implementation in the UK and to a lesser extent in Australia has provoked a number of questions about what this means in practice and what some of the implications are for treatment. This is particularly important as there is growing interest in recovery in Western Europe with policy recognition in Belgium and the Netherlands, and increased interest in research issues around recovery.\ud \ud What this article sets out to do is to discuss the implications of a recovery model for commissioning and treatment systems, with a focus on where recovery approaches sit and what they can offer in terms of added value to treatment approaches