Why is a life saving, recommended and licensed medicine being ignored?

Experts on heroin use are concerned that drug users and their families in England are being denied access to a life-saving medicine: naloxone, an antidote to heroin overdoses. The Office for National Statistics have reported that opioid overdose deaths in England have risen by 32% in 2013. Naloxone Action Group England (NAG) are calling for urgent action to ensure that overdose deaths return to the previous downward trend.

There is nothing to prevent those at risk of opiate overdose being prescribed naloxone now, and yet over 50% of local authorities, who are now responsible for commissioning drug treatment in England, do not currently provide it. Scotland and Wales both have national programmes, which are successfully reducing the number of opiate overdoses in those countries.

In May 2012 the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) advised that the Government should ease the restrictions on who can be supplied with naloxone and should investigate how people supplied with naloxone can be suitably trained to administer it in an emergency and respond to overdoses.

The government have now responded to this recommendation and have said that new regulations are being prepared by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) which will come into effect in October 2015.

John Jolly, Chair of NAG England, said: “Local authorities in England can already take action to ensure that take home naloxone is made available in their area. But too many areas are failing to provide this life saving medicine and urgent action is needed to ensure wider access for those at risk of overdose, their peers, and families. That is why we are calling for the government to introduce a national programme as there is in the rest of the UK.”

You can help by sending your MP a pre-worded email asking them to sign theEarly Day Motion 445 which calls on the Government to prioritise the roll-out of Naloxone across the whole of the UK.

Sign up to become a signatory showing your support for the NAG Englandcampaign to make Naloxone more accessible.

Email your MP to push for naloxone in England.

Contact details: 

• Helen Deeson, h.deeson@blenheimcdp.org.uk, 020 7582 2200
• Andrew Brown, andrewb@drgscope.org.uk, 020 7234 9730

Naloxone is a medicine licensed for use in the treatment of suspected acute opioid overdose or intoxication – in layman’s terms it is a medicine that can help stop someone who is overdosing from dying.

NAG is made up of a number of organisations who have come together to press for wider availability of naloxone in England.  In 2012 the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) recommended to the government that naloxone become more widely available in England, in 2014 the Department of Health accepted that recommendation and have set a date of October 2015 for new regulations to come into force.

There are existing national programmes for take-home naloxone running in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland which provide a successful template for the development of an English programme and the World Health Organisation have published guidelines on the use of naloxone in community settings.

Read some cases below:

• I am the evidence that Naloxone works 1
• I am the evidence that Naloxone works 2
• I am the evidence that Naloxone works 3
• I am the evidence that Naloxone works 4
• I am the evidence that Naloxone works 5

Click here to know more about Naloxone Action Group - England.

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