Since 2015, naloxone has played a major role in supporting the people who use our services. By temporarily reversing the effects of an opioid overdose, naloxone has helped to reduce the risk of overdoses and save people’s lives.
Now we are launching our strategy for 2022 to make naloxone more available to people than ever before. We want to make sure that anyone who needs naloxone has it to hand and knows how to use it.
Bringing naloxone to communities
Until now, we have focused on making sure that naloxone is available to people who are already using our services. We have increased the amount of naloxone kits we hand out year on year. This has made it possible for more people than ever to help someone who is having an overdose. We want to carry on with this, but we also want to provide more naloxone to communities.
We want to bring naloxone to people, instead of waiting for them to come to us.
We also want to make naloxone more available through local partnerships and a peer-to-peer approach.
The key partners who can help local services provide more naloxone are: approved premises, pharmacies, police, hospitals, ambulances, hostels, homeless shelters, and prisons. People can also help to give out naloxone to their own peers.
By working together as organisations and as individuals, we can make sure that naloxone kits and training are available throughout communities. This approach will empower people to support each other and to save lives.