Caroline Lucas – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Caroline Lucas on 2016-03-02.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, pursuant to the Answer of 1 December 2015 to Question 17278, what progress Public Health England has made on investigating the use of Office for National Statistics data on drug-related deaths to assess the impact of increased naloxone availability; and if he will make a statement.

Jane Ellison

In October 2015 Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency changed medicines regulations to widen the availability of naloxone. Public Health England provided advice on local implementation.

Drug poisioning deaths – which include drug misuse deaths – are published annually by the Office for National Statistics. These statistics are for deaths registered in each year.

Since there are often delays in registering drug-related deaths, it is likely to be some time before we can meaningfully assess what impact the wider availability of naloxone has made on the numbers of drug related deaths.