ID: HR19-246

Presenting author: Kirsten Horsburgh

Presenting author biography:

Kirsten leads Scottish Drugs Forum’s work on drug death prevention. This involves supporting the development of SDF and Scottish Government’s jointly published strategy: Staying Alive in Scotland. Kirsten also coordinates Scotland’s National Naloxone Programme.

Preservation of Life: Involving Police and Prison Officers in Scotland's National Naloxone Programme

Kirsten Horsburgh

Drug-related deaths in Scotland have reached record levels, with almost 1000 people dying from preventable overdoses in 2017. The national naloxone programme is now in its 7th year and has supplied around 40,000 take-home naloxone kits to people likely to witness an overdose, with around 4,000 kits being used in an emergency to reverse a potential fatality. Drug deaths would likely be significantly higher without the availability of this life-saving medication.

There is a clear need for wider provision of naloxone to include those working in law enforcement and custodial settings who are often first responders.

The Scottish Prison Service made a commitment to training all night staff prison officers across the entire estate due to the absence of nursing cover overnight. Scottish Drugs Forum (SDF) provided this training during 2017 and the project went live in October 2018.
Police Scotland is actively promoting awareness of naloxone which has been delivered by SDF to probationers and some frontline police with the view of eventually having naloxone available to police to use in an emergency. It is expected that there will be a pilot of police carrying naloxone late 2018.

This is not a straightforward process and the learning from the Scottish experience will be valuable to those seeking to implement similar programmes. This presentation will consider training requirements, organisational barriers, stigma, the importance of staff support and other key learning points from this work.