Does take-home naloxone reduce non-fatal overdose?

After a 1 year assessment of community or prison-based prescription of take-home naloxone (THN) to opiate users in Wales, the Welsh Government rolled out nationally the prescription of THN later in 2011. The main aim was to reduce opiate-related overdose deaths from about 85 per year (for 2006–09). In 2010, there were 68 opiate-related deaths in Wales, but an 18% reduction was also reported in England (from 1065 opiate-related deaths per year in 2006–09, to 873 in 2010). Because of delays in death-registration in England and Wales,2 the data for 2011 and 2012 are still incomplete.