Government plans consultation on increasing naloxone access

The Government is planning a public consultation on legislative amendments to increase access to take-home and emergency use naloxone later this year, a minister has revealed.

In a written answer to a question from Charlotte Nichols, Labour MP for Warrington North, on when naloxone supply network coordinators would be rolled out, Ashley Dalton, parliamentary under-secretary for health and social care, said the government has encountered problems in establishing supply network co-ordinators which were part of legislation introduced last year to expand access to the overdose reversal medicine.

She added that the 'operational difficulties' had meant the implementation of these changes have been delayed. But that the government now intends to launch a public consultation on further legislative amendments to increase access to take-home and emergency use naloxone by the end of this year.

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Plans for the coordinators were established under amendments to the Human Medicines Regulations 2012 in 2024.

The legislation also expanded the list of professionals who can supply take-home naloxone without a prescription.

Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians were among those added to the list when the changes came into force on 2 December 2024, alongside prison staff, registered midwives and registered nurses.

However, there was another route to supply take home naloxone, which was subject to registration with a network coordinator, provided that they met certain conditions. But the rollout of this has been delayed, according to the minister.

Ms Dalton said naloxone is 'more important than ever' as highly potent synthetic opioids grow in prevalence in the UK. She added the medicine reverses the effects of opioid overdoses and saves lives.

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The minister also pointed to DHSC guidance on supplying take-home naloxone without a prescription, setting out who can supply it, available products, how to use it and training requirements.

The update on the legislation follows the release of a range of data on deaths due to drug misuse and poisoning across the UK.

Scotland registered 1,017 drug misuse deaths in 2024, down 13% on the previous year and the lowest total since 2017. However, the rate remains 3.6 times higher than at the start of the millennium.

In England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics reported 5,565 deaths related to drug poisoning registered in 2024, up 2.1% from 5,448 in 2023 and the highest level since comparable records began in 1993.

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This equates to a rate of 93.9 deaths per million people, more than double the rate recorded in 2012 and continuing a trend of year-on-year increases since that time.

These figures reflect that pharmacists are increasingly being placed on the front line of preventing fatal overdoses, with naloxone seen as a key to that.