Source · Select Committees · Home Affairs Committee
Recommendation 21
21
Accepted in Part
Paragraph: 86
Update the 10-Year Drugs Strategy to increase available harm reduction approaches for treatment.
Recommendation
We recommend that the Government update the strategy to increase the range of harm reduction approaches available to support a person’s treatment and recovery from drugs in line with the approaches outlined in this report.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government partially accepted the recommendation, stating it already provides a broad range of harm reduction interventions, including increasing naloxone availability and supporting local provision of other medicines. It committed to continuing to update guidance on evidence-based harm reduction interventions.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
86
Government Response
Accepted in Part
HM Government · verbatim extract
Accepted in Part
The Government’s 10-year Drug Strategy already provides strong support for harm reduction approaches. This is just one component of the broader government support for harm reduction, which is supplemented by, for example, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance on needle and syringe programmes (PH52), 9 UK-wide clinical guidelines on clinical management of drug misuse and dependence, and the hepatitis C elimination campaign. An integral part of action on drugs is reducing the harms associated with drug use, with interventions such as needle and syringe programmes; blood-borne virus screening, immunisation, and treatment; naloxone provision; and wound care. Many of these interventions were included on the Supplementary Substance Misuse Treatment and Recovery (SSMTR) grant menu of interventions and taken up by local authorities.
Read the full response on Parliament ↗