Reducing drug related deaths in Scotland

By Kirsten Horsburgh

Wherever there are significant numbers of people injecting in public, there is a clear need for supervised injecting facilities.

The introduction of Supervised Injecting Facilities in Scotland is one of three recommendations in a report published by Kirsten Horsburgh, National Naloxone Coordinator at Scottish Drugs Forum, following her Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travel Fellowship to Australia.

Kirsten was awarded the 6 week Fellowship to research strategies adopted in Australia to reduce drug-related deaths. During this trip she spent 2 weeks in the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) in the Kings Cross area of Sydney to gather learning from this service to inform key stakeholders and decision-makers in Scotland.

Drug-related deaths in the UK are at an all time high. In Scotland, these deaths are among the highest in Europe, per head of population. 613 people lost their lives to accidental and preventable overdoses in 2014.

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