The recent naloxone and overdose awareness campaign launched in the UK has stimulated an important conversation amongst many: what is naloxone? Though patented back in 1961, it is only now, in the midst of an opioid epidemic, that naloxone is beginning to assert itself within the general public.
A generation of people born in the 1960s and 1970s, known as Generation X, are dying from suicide or drug poisoning in greater numbers than ever. ONS data for England and Wales has shown that in the late 1980s to early 1990s, the age at which most people died by taking their own lives or drug poisoning was concentrated around this generation, when they were in their 20s.
Release surveyed each of the 152 local authority areas in England, as local authorities are responsible for commissioning drug services, which give out take-home naloxone. The report includes findings on the availability of take-home naloxone across local authority areas, the scale of take-home naloxone supply in community settings, and coverage among people who use opiates and opiate clients in drug treatment.
The 2018 report from the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction has been released, this report presents a top-level overview of the drug phenomenon in Europe, covering drug supply, use and public health problems as well as drug policy and responses.
The aim of this evaluation was to establish whether the current model of naloxone provision and training across all Health and Social Care (HSC) Trusts in Northern Ireland is sufficient and to identify areas for development.
The supply of ‘Take Home Naloxone’ (THN) was initiated (pilot project) in 2009 as a harm reduction tool used to prevent fatal opioid poisonings, and has since been fully implemented across all health boards in Wales. This report provides data on the training and provision of THN kits from 49 registries across Wales recorded on the Harm Reduction Database Wales (HRD) during the period 1st April 2015 to 31st March 2016.
