Guidance

Potent synthetic opioids: preparing for a future threat

Incident planning for potent synthetic opioids arriving into the illicit drug market.

• From: Office for Health Improvement and Disparities
• Published: 8 May 2018
• Last updated: 31 July 2023 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

Guidance for local areas on planning to deal with potent synthetic opioids

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Local areas should use this guidance when preparing their response to incidents caused by potent synthetic opioids like nitazenes or fentanyl.

They can do this by working through existing mechanisms for emergency preparation, response and recovery to develop a plan that can be enacted quickly in the event of an incident – for example, with the local resilience forum or health resilience partnership.

The plan should enable local partners to rapidly:

• understand the scale of the threat and assess the risk
• communicate the threat
• take actions to mitigate the threat

This guidance was originally developed in partnership with the Local Government Association.

Published 8 May 2018
Last updated 31 July 2023 + show all updates

1. 31 July 2023

   Updated to take account of recent changes in the opioids appearing on the illicit drug market.

2. 8 May 2018

   First published.