How naloxone training is making Scotland's busiest train station safer

Naloxone is a medicine that temporarily reverses the effects of opioids such as heroin, methadone and codeine. If someone is in an opioid overdose, this medicine can save their life, buying time for the emergency services to arrive. Any member of the public can complete training and carry naloxone to administer to anyone in an emergency and save their life. 

Recently, naloxone has been heavily featured in the news, with the Scottish Government and Scottish Drugs Forum's joint campaign 'Stop the Deaths' encouraging people to learn how to recognise the signs of a drug overdose, receive training in the use of the life-saving medication and get a free naloxone kit. Police Scotland also completed a naloxone pilot with officers carrying the kits and announced that this will be rolled out across the country. More locally, Glasgow Taxi drivers have begun to undertake training and carry the medicine. 

Drug and Alcohol services have been delivering life-saving naloxone training in Glasgow and Lanarkshire since 2011. Recently, they delivered their training to the Network Rail team at Glasgow Central Station. We spoke to Drew Burns, Station Manager at Glasgow Central to hear about the experience. 

"Initially Turning Point Scotland were just going to host a stall in the main concourse of the station, providing information and kits to the public but it was then agreed that a few members of my team should undertake the training as well. 

"I had actually never heard of [naloxone] before but we're trying to make the station a 'Keep Safe' location in the city so having staff clued up on spotting signs of an overdose and being able to administer this life saving drug seemed like a great way to work towards that goal. 

"We've been working with local organisations to better promote the station as a 'Keep Safe' place in the city, so when Turning Point wanted to host a stall in partnership with Scottish Families Affected by Drugs (SFAD) and We Are With You (WAWY) we were delighted to help raise awareness of not only naloxone but other resources available within communities. 

"Five members of our team took part in the training and I think everyone's biggest worry going into the session was "what happens if we get it wrong and the person wasn't in an opioid overdose, will we endanger them?". We felt so much more confident when it was explained that there are no harmful effects of using the medicine on someone who wasn't in overdose. I was also amazed at how quickly we were able to complete the training, it only took half an hour - no time at all!  

"Going forward, we'll definitely be encouraging all of the staff to gain this confidence in using these kits as only a week after this training session, one of our staff members managed to prevent a fatal overdose by using naloxone in the station."