PHE accused of toning down positive report on drug centres
Line saying overdose prevention centres have helped lower death rates was removed from briefing
Friday, March 5, 2021
Public Health England has been accused of watering down a briefing on the life-saving merits of overdose prevention centres (OPCs) after a paper was retracted and then rereleased with a much less optimistic outlook on the facilities. The paper by PHE’s knowledge and library service was published in March 2019 after appeals from Labour to run pilots of OPCs but it was taken down and altered by the agency’s national drugs team after it faced calls to recommend the establishment of such centres in the UK. The Scottish government released a report on international approaches to drug policy reform which said OPC’s have “consistently been shown” to prevent fatal overdoses, improve uptake of addiction treatment and provide healthcare to hard-to-reach communities.
