All frontline officers should be equipped with overdose kits to help tackle the soaring numbers of drug addicts who are dying on Britain's streets, a police leader has suggested.

More than 2,300 people died from overdoses last year and there are increasing calls for bobbies on the beat to do more to intervene.

Hardyal Dhindsa, the police and crime commissioner for Derbyshire, has said officers should routinely carry supplies of naloxone, a chemical that can quickly reverse the effects of an opiate overdose.

But rank and file officers have expressed concern about the proposals, insisting they have to draw the line at some point and say "it’s not our job".