An app that uses Google Maps to highlight places such as pharmacies and needle exchanges that offer free naloxone has been launched by Turning Point and Somerset Council on International Overdose Awareness Day.
The Carry Naloxone app, which was launched in partnership with Bristol University, also provides short videos on how to recognise an overdose. The scheme, which is being piloted in Somerset and will be rolled out nationally if successful, is being launched at the same time as on online click-and-deliver scheme to people unable to collect a kit. The campaign will also feature posters that include a QR code to help people find the nearest place stocking naloxone.
‘Carrying naloxone is really important, not keeping it in a cupboard,’ said senior lecturer at Bristol University Dr Jennifer Scott, who developed the app. ‘No one can predict when the medication might be needed and the quicker it is given, the more likely it is to save someone’s life. The training is simple, and the ambition of this campaign is to support International Overdose Awareness Day in its mission to end overdose.’
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(Features September 2023): As Overdose Awareness Day approached, the millionth kit of injectable naloxone was distributed. DDN looks back at the story of this lifesaving intervention.
(Features February 2023): Turning Point hosted its first Safer Lives conference in Birmingham making a commitment to addressing the drug death crisis.
(News August 2023): An app to highlight places such as pharmacies and needle exchanges that offer free naloxone has been launched by Turning Point and Somerset Council.
(The DDN Conference 2023): Cranstoun’s Worcestershire service talk about their peer-led naloxone team, PACKS – ‘peer-assisted community knowledge and support’.
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