Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

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.

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.