UK Parliament
The government is to consult on changing the law to increase access to take-home and emergency use naloxone before the end of 2025, a minister has said.
In a written answer to a parliamentary question, published on 9 December 2025, asking what the timeline is for the establishment of the naloxone supply network coordinators, health minister Ashley Dalton said that the proposals follow delays in implementing a previous law change designed to make the opioid antidote more widely available.
In December 2024, UK law was amended to make it legal for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to provide take-home naloxone kits without a prescription in an effort to widen access.
Pharmacy professionals — as well as others, including prison staff, registered midwives and registered nurses — were then added to an existing list of professionals who were able to offer take-home naloxone kits.
Naloxone can also be prescribed by a GP or drug treatment service, while some prisons provide naloxone to inmates on release and ambulance paramedics carry it. In addition, community pharmacies that provide other drug treatment services are able to supply naloxone without prescription.
Dalton continued that the new legislation increased the number of services and professionals who could provide take-home naloxone.
“However, not all services and professions had an agreed statutory definition across the four nations of the UK,” she said.
In light of this, the legislation also set up a legal framework for the creation of a registration service for services and professions who fall outside the specific definitions listed to be able to provide take-home naloxone.
“Since these changes came into effect, the government has worked with the devolved administrations and frontline services to explore the set-up and delivery of this registration service,” Dalton wrote.
“We have encountered operational difficulties in establishing supply network coordinators in England, which has delayed implementation. However, we have identified further legislative amendments to increase access to take-home and emergency use naloxone and, as such, we intend to launch a public consultation by the end of this year.”
Jon Findlay, national harm reduction lead at Waythrough, a charity that offers training packages for community pharmacies that provide a naloxone service, said: “We welcome any changes that increase access to naloxone and furthering the provision of this life-saving medicine. Sadly, in 2024, we again recorded higher levels of preventable drug-related deaths, so more needs to be done to make naloxone more widely available.”
Laura Wilson, director for Scotland at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, said: “We welcome the government’s plans to consult on expanding access to take-home and emergency naloxone. With the growing prevalence of potent synthetic opioids, timely access to naloxone is essential to prevent drug-related deaths.
“Any legislative change must be supported by clear, consistent training requirements so anyone supplying naloxone is confident in how to store it, use it safely and support individuals in an emergency.”
Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) show that 4,790 people died as a result of drug misuse in Great Britain in 2023. In the same year, there were 3,618 drug-misuse deaths in England and Wales — a 16% increase from 3,127 drug-misuse deaths in 2022, according to the data.
National Records of Scotland figures show a total of 1,172 drug misuse deaths in 2023, or 224 deaths per 1 million of the Scottish population — a 12% rise from the previous year and 3.5 times higher than the proportion of drug misuse deaths in England and Wales in 2023.
