Treatment
“Even an hour can be a long time”
Change Grow Live's innovative rapid prescription service improves access to opioid substitution treatment for people experiencing both rough sleeping and dependent opioid use.
You're asking someone who's woken up in a doorway on a really cold day… rightly or wrongly, their priority is not, ‘I really need to get to that appointment at 10 o'clock’.”
Recovery Coordinator
Rapid prescribing is so much more than a faster route into treatment; it reduces structural barriers, enhances engagement, responds to emerging drug threats, supports a broad range of positive health and social outcomes, and is trauma informed. Most importantly, it aligns with the unique lived experiences of the people it supports.
Before accessing treatment, people typically need to attend multiple appointments over several weeks. Someone sleeping rough may have just a brief window in which they are motivated and ready to engage. Any delay can result in missed appointments, disengagement and continued reliance on illicit opioids.
We said to him, ‘what would have made the biggest difference to you in all the time we've been dealing with you?’ And he said, ‘getting the script faster’
Police Officer, Manchester Street Engagement Team
With rapid prescribing, assessments, medical reviews and prescribing are all completed within a day or two, significantly reducing the risk of losing people.
Rather than requiring people to repeatedly recount often distressing personal histories, our teams conduct integrated assessments that reduce the need for repetition. This doesn’t just increase efficiency; the people we work with report that this lowers their anxiety and minimises the risk of re-traumatisation.
If they say to me, ‘We can't script you for two weeks’, I've got to find heroin for the next two weeks. It's as simple as that, mate.
Early 50s, male, Salford
The fear of withdrawal is such an added anxiety to people with an abundance of mental and physical health issues.”
Triage, Street Engagement Hub
An in-depth evaluation of our rapid prescription service found that the immediacy is central to its effectiveness, and should be considered a form of harm reduction in its own right.
Ultimately, it improves health and wellbeing, saves lives, and can support people off the street.
Read the project evaluation report
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