Changing Lives: The Drug Deaths Taskforce Final Report

By The Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce

This, the final report of the Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce, sets out a suite of evidence-based recommendations and actions that will reduce drug-related deaths and harms and improve and save the lives of people who use drugs. Our final report has four substantive chapters. 1. Context: explores where we are now, gives an overview of the work of the Taskforce to date and discusses the legal context in which Scotland operates. 2. Culture: sets out what the ethos of the system should be and the changes that are needed to achieve this. It calls for broad culture change from stigma, discrimination, politicisation and punishment towards care, compassion and human rights. 3. Care: investigates what is needed to deliver an effective, consistent, personcentred, whole-systems approach that delivers high-quality care. It builds on the principle that drug dependency should receive parity with any other health conditions, with people getting the care they need when they need it. 4. Co-ordination: sets out the foundations of the changes that are required, including targeted resource and decisive leadership. Twenty overarching recommendations are provided at the beginning of the report. Each chapter then includes evidence-based actions that are summarised in a table at the end of the report.

Edinburgh: The Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce, 2022. 135p.