In England and Wales between 2010 and 2014, opiates featured in 53% of all drug related deaths.
Following the legislative change at the end of last year, Naloxone is now more readily available. Scotland enforced similar legislation in 2011 reducing their opiate related deaths over 2 years by 62%.
An overview of the new legislation:
- Supplied without prescription
- Supplied to individuals by drugs treatment service commissioned by a LA or NHS
- The supply is suitably recorded
Buried in a document somewhere PHE give advice on suitable recording. Don’t get caught out, if they suggest your minimum information ‘might include’ something or it might ‘be useful’ it’s very likely they’ll be asking you to report on this data at some point in the future.
Act now, make sure you are recording the following:
- Details of person supplied
- Details of naloxone supplied (product, batch number, expiry date, etc)
- Training provided
- Incident details:
- circumstances of the overdose: who, when, where, etc
- whose naloxone was used by whom
- how many naloxone doses were given and their effects
- the response of emergency services (time to ambulance arrival, additional naloxone administered, person taken to hospital, etc)
- advice given to the overdosed person
- outcome of the overdose and its treatment
Take a look at Halo’s Naloxone System and equip yourself with the right tools now.
