Medications in Drug Treatment: Tackling the Risks to Children – One Year on

This ‘One Year On’ report expands upon the findings and recommendations of Adfam’s Medications in Drug Treatment: Tackling the risks to children, published in 2014, and further contributes to the debate on reducing the risks to children posed by prescribed medications used in opioid substitution therapy (OST).

Key findings included:

• At least 110 persons aged 18 and under died from ingesting OST medications between 2003 and 2013: 73 in England and Wales, and 37 in Scotland.
• Of the 73 deaths in England and Wales, only seven resulted in a serious case review; meaning that an additional 66 deaths did not.
• Hospitalisation statistics show that between 2003 and 2014, at least 328 children were hospitalised in England due to methadone poisoning.