Paramedics in Glasgow will give patients at risk of drug overdose live-saving medication to carry with them, as part of a pilot scheme in which the ambulance service will distribute naloxone kits for the first time in Scotland.

Naloxone, a drug which reverses the breathing difficulties that are the main life-threatening effect of an opioid overdose, will be given in a take-home kit to those treated by paramedics for a non-fatal overdose but who don’t want to go to hospital.

The three-month trial is funded by Scotland’s Drug Deaths Taskforce, which was established last July by the Scottish government to tackle the country’s soaring rate of drug-related fatalities.

Pioneering Glasgow clinic offers addicts pharmaceutical grade heroin Read more

Scotland led the way in the distribution of naloxone when it became the first country in the world to freely supply kits to people who use drugs for peer administration in 2011, and later made them available to drug users’ friends and family and to practitioners working in the field.

Initially highly effective, the programme has since stalled, with slow uptake of peer distribution beyond Glasgow. Police Scotland are still considering carrying the kits after the Scottish Police Federation raised concerns about over-extending beat officers.

Ongoing research by Andrew McAuley, a respected health policy analyst at Glasgow Caledonian University, has uncovered the paradox that while naloxone kits are reaching growing numbers of people who inject drugs, fewer are being carried around as intended, partly because of a perception that police carrying out routine stop and searches would view the kits as drug paraphernalia because a needle is included.

Welcoming the announcement, Kirsten Horsburgh, the Scottish Drug Forum’s lead on drug death prevention, said: “Scotland has a world leading national take-home naloxone programme and this is another important development. It is a small pilot which will be useful to inform a further roll out, but to keep pace with Scotland’s horrific and rising numbers of people dying from preventable overdoses there needs to be improvements in other areas such as existing community and prison distribution programmes.”

In her own submission to the taskforce earlier this year, she recommended that police officers carry naloxone, that all pharmacies stock and supply it, and that GPs also prescribe take-home kits. She also added that the involvement of peers in naloxone distribution programmes was crucial to broaden the reach of the life-saving medication.

A similar pilot scheme was launched in Redcar and Cleveland in the north-east of England by Addaction, the drug and alcohol charity, in November last year.