Moves to help people survive potentially life-threatening overdoses from super-strength street drugs more powerful than heroin have been welcomed by a Hull charity.

Opioid-related deaths make up the largest proportion of drug-related deaths across the UK, averaging 40 deaths a week.

Widening access to a powerful antidote called naloxone which almost immediately counters the effects of an overdose by reversing breathing difficulties should make a big difference. Current issuing of the drug is patchy – people who are admitted to hospital with an overdose aren’t routinely issued with naloxone when they go home. Police in some areas carry naloxone as a nasal spray, but not all.

Under new government plans, police, probation and prison services, midwives, paramedics and nurses could provide take-home supplies without a prescription.

Tim Young, Chief Executive of The Alcohol and Drug Service

The services could then issue the antidote to outreach workers, family or friends of a person using opiates like heroin, or opioids, which include potent synthetic opioids like fentanyl or nitazenes.

Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and is the primary drug in the US, where synthetic opioids were estimated to have caused 75,000 deaths in 2022. Nitazenes have similar properties to fentanyl but can be up to 300 times stronger than heroin.

Tim Young, CEO of charity The Alcohol and Drug Service, which has bases in Hull, East Yorkshire and Doncaster, welcomed the move. He said: “In simple terms, we need to keep people alive if they are to benefit from the improvements across the recovery and treatment system. In overdose situations naloxone can do just that. It’s permission, a push to do it - once people start doing it you will create a body of good practice.”

The Department of Health and Social Care will run a six-week consultation seeking views from healthcare professionals, health services and commissioners as well as those with direct experience. Policing Minister Chris Philp said: “The provision of naloxone will be lifesaving and I am pleased this antidote will be more available for those in desperate need. More broadly our strategy is to tackle both the illicit supply of drugs, relentlessly pursuing criminal networks, and to build a world-class treatment system to turn people's lives around.”

Government Independent Adviser Professor Dame Carol Black who visited the charity’s base in Doncaster last year, said: “This is a highly effective antidote to heroin and the increasing number of synthetic opioids in circulation. It quite simply saves lives after an overdose has occurred.”

Friends and families of people with opioid addictions could be issued life-saving drug