Scottish Government has announced that a new national service will be implemented to provide emergency access to supplies of naloxone. The service is due to start on 30 October.
This service will allow the community pharmacy network to support increased access to naloxone so that it can be used to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose in an emergency.
RPS Scotland has consistently called for naloxone to be available from every community pharmacy for supply to people who use drugs, family, healthcare professionals, and for it to be available in all clinical settings for use in emergencies. This new service across the community pharmacy network is a huge step forward in achieving this. This is recommendation number one from our policy on Pharmacy’s role in reducing harm and preventing drug deaths.
Commenting on the Scottish Government announcement about the new service, Laura Wilson, Director of RPS Scotland, said:
“This new service is a really important step to support the role of community pharmacy teams in reducing harm and preventing drugs deaths.
RPS has been calling on the Scottish Government to ensure naloxone is made available from every community pharmacy, and the announcement of this new national service for emergency stockholding is extremely welcome.
It is critical that pharmacy teams have time and space to undertake training to fully support them to deliver the service.
“We stand ready to support the service in any way we can and look forward to continuing to work with the Scottish Government, including with the development of any additional policies which could be introduced to reduce harm and prevent drug deaths.”
The full Scottish Government statement on the National Naloxone Service, can be read here: https://www.sehd.scot.nhs.uk/