Carriage of Naloxone by Police Scotland officers

All frontline uniformed Police Scotland officers up to and including the rank of Inspector have been trained and equipped with intra-nasal Naloxone.

Naloxone is an emergency, first aid response to opioid/opiate-related drug overdose situations. It reverses the respiratory suppression caused by opioids, stimulating a person's breathing; it can buy someone enough time to allow ambulance clinicians to arrive and provide professional medical care.

In February 2022, the Chief Constable made the decision to approve a national roll-out of Naloxone.

This followed an independent evaluation of our test of change in Dundee, Falkirk, Glasgow, Stirling and Caithness in 2021, during which officers used the spray on 62 occasions.

Police Scotland’s national rollout of Naloxone began on International Overdose Awareness Day in August 2022 following successful pilots in Caithness, Dundee, Falkirk, Glasgow and Stirling in 2021.

The national rollout was officially completed in August 2023 and Naloxone is now part of standard issue kit for all officers up to and including the rank of Inspector.

Officers will undertake a Naloxone refresher annually during their annual Operational Safety Training recertification.

The Naloxone being carried by Police Scotland officers is administered via a single use intra-nasal spray device. Police Scotland officers already undertake in-depth first aid training. The carriage and administration of Naloxone by an officer is an extension of their first aid skills.

Since 2005, Naloxone has been on a list of medications which anyone can legally administer in an emergency in order to save a life (contained within the Human Medicine Regulations 2012).

The circumstances leading to Naloxone administrations by police have been varied, and have included incidents where officers have discovered unconscious casualties during patrols, or being alerted to an overdose by a member of the public.

Other incidents have involved people in police custody, during police Public Order incidents and the execution of a search warrant. Naloxone has also been administered to people intending to complete suicide.

In 2022, there were 1,051 drug related deaths in Scotland, a drop of nearly 21 per cent on the previous year (a reduction of 279 deaths) which represented the lowest number of drug misuse deaths since 2017. However, Scotland still has the highest drug related deaths rate in Europe, with a rate 2.7 times higher than the UK average.

Police Scotland’s work to introduce Naloxone as part of standard issue kit to its officers has been supported by the Scottish Government, as well as a range of key stakeholders.

Between 1 July and 30 September, 2023, the life-saving first aid treatment was provided by officers in the West at 38 incidents, in the North on 34 occasions and in the East at 24 incidents.

There were also five incidents where Naloxone was administered within the Criminal Justice Services Division (CJSD).

Sadly, there were two casualties in this time who were beyond medical assistance and did not survive.

Date	Number of Administrations	North Command	East Command	West Command	CJSD
July 2023	34	13	9	11	1
August 2023	39	7	7	22	3
September 2023	28	14	8	5	1
Q2 2023-24 TOTAL	101	34	24	38	5

This brings the total numbers of administrations since Naloxone was first provided to officers as part of a national test of change in March 2021 to at least 353 incidents.

While the overwhelming majority of cases had positive outcomes, sadly, on 10 occasions, the casualty was beyond medical assistance and did not survive.

Date range	Number of administrations	Sudden deaths
March – December 2021	56	1
January – December 2022	50	3
January – March 2023	47	0
April – June 2023	99	4
July - September 2023	101	2
Total	353	10