Harm reduction
As soon as Harbour Housing
introduced naloxone a life
was saved. A decade on
they are looking back on
one of their best decisions,
as Emily Hill explains
The power of naloxone
HOMELESS CHARITY HARBOUR HOUSING is
celebrating a decade of its naloxone scheme, which is
proving effective in saving lives from opioid overdoses.
Naloxone is a competitive antagonist which, simply
put, means that it is a drug that can temporarily
reverse the effects of an overdose through knocking
the opioids off the receptors.
It has been described by staff at Harbour as a
‘miracle drug’ as it can bring people back from the
brink of death, and has been used to successfully
prevent 46 cases of overdose at Harbour since it was
introduced in 2009.
The drug is administered via syringe directly into
the muscle and is incredibly fast acting, in most cases
reviving the patient in minutes.
Jade Barron, a tenancy sustainment officer at
Harbour, has intervened in several overdose
situations. ‘It’s incredible how quickly the naloxone
takes effect. People can be revived immediately and
the great thing about it is that there are no negative
side effects so it’s completely safe to use,’ she said.
‘Sometimes it acts as a wake-up call. I’ve had a
resident be brought back with naloxone and the next
week decide to fully commit to recovery.’
And with each naloxone kit costing as little as £30 it
is clear that easier access to this life-saving drug could
help to save thousands of lives, as well as taxpayers’
money.
Harbour was approached by Marion Barton, social
inclusion lead for the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Drug
and Alcohol Action Team (DAAT), in 2009 and asked to
pilot the scheme. At the time Harbour was tolerant to
alcohol use on site but not the use of drugs, and
despite this had sadly lost residents to overdose.
It was for this reason, says Chris Abbott, Harbour’s
head of housing, that management decided to go
ahead with the project. ‘We wanted to make things
safer for our residents, and naloxone seemed like an
excellent way to do this,’ he said.
‘Just after we had initiated the project we had
another overdose incident and this time we were able
to save their life with the naloxone. We knew then
10 | drinkanddrugsnews | October 2019
‘Sometimes it acts as a wake-
up call. I’ve had a resident be
brought back with naloxone
and the next week decide to
fully commit to recovery.’
JADE BARRON
that we would do whatever we could to go ahead with
this project and ensure that naloxone was available to
whoever needed it.’
Naloxone was more heavily regulated back in
2009 and could only be prescribed directly to a drug
user, which was not an effective way to ensure their
safety as they would be unable to use it on
themselves in an overdose situation. Harbour has
been instrumental in developing national naloxone
policy, helping to influence the change in 2015 that
allowed the drug to be prescribed to a responsible
person and kept in communal areas of supported
accommodation facilities.
Over the last ten years naloxone has become an
integral part of Harbour’s harm reduction procedure,
with kits easily available across all of its properties in
boxes attached directly to the walls, as well as in first-
aid kits and kept in vehicles.
After the development of the naloxone scheme,
Harbour was assisted by drug and housing policy
expert Kevin Flemen to adjust its own policy to become
tolerant to use of drugs within the law. Through having
this high tolerance to both drug and alcohol use,
Harbour has been able to accept referrals from those
who would otherwise have nowhere else to go.
People struggling with addiction need the right
support to be able to manage their substance use,
and Harbour says that their tolerant ‘eyes wide open’
approach allows for honesty and trust between staff
and residents, which has a really positive impact on
recovery.
Drug use is much more dangerous when it is kept
hidden, and recent figures from the Office of National
Statistics revealed that drug-related deaths reached
an all-time high of 4,359 across England and Wales
last year (DDN, September, page 4).
Naloxone distribution has become much more
widespread in recent years, and thanks to the hard
work of the DAAT it is now available in all supported
accommodations across Cornwall. All staff, residents
and volunteers at Harbour are trained in the
administration of naloxone, and in recent years
Harbour has also trained members of staff from other
supported accommodations.
We hope that the increase in availability of this
life-saving drug will reduce the harm to people
struggling with addiction and stop the rise of
preventable deaths.
Emily Hill is tenancy sustainment officer:
communications and research at Harbour Housing
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com