Tackling Drug Deaths and Community Pharmacy

Published: 01/10/25

Our Manifesto makes clear our ambitions for community pharmacy in Scotland and the practical actions required to make our vision a reality. 

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Our Mission is to prevent, detect and treat illness close to home - delivering healthier communities across Scotland. 

Tackling drug deaths is a clear national priority. Community pharmacies play a significant role in supporting people who use drugs through locally commissioned services for harm reduction, advice and the dispensing and supervision of opioid replacement therapy. In 2023, a national service which ensures that every pharmacy in Scotland holds a supply of Naloxone for use in emergency overdoses was established. We are determined that this is developed further to train and make supplies to those most at risk as well as the people who support them. 

However, our main policy ambition to help prevent drug deaths is the move away from local variation to the establishment of a national substance use service supported by centralised funding. Working with the experts, this will ensure that our teams are uniformly commissioned to focus on the care and interventions that best protect our most vulnerable people. Crucially, this means that the same, evidence-based support will be available to our most vulnerable people, regardless of where they live. 

Healthcare Improvement Scotland’s 2024 report on Medication-assisted therapy (MAT) standards implementation calls for national standards, and Community Pharmacy Scotland fully supports this direction of travel. The will to enhance our teams’ impact in this policy area is already there - only with the right investment and upskilling can we realise this ambition. 

Therefore, one of our top priorities heading into the 2026 elections is the call for local commissioning of services for people who use drugs to be replaced with a nationally negotiated community pharmacy service, informed by the MAT standards and the April 2024 HIS recommendations on service standards.   

For more information read our manifesto here….   

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