Drug misuse in over 16s: opioid detoxification

The Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) at the Department for Health and Social Care convened a clinical expert group to consider available evidence and clinical experience to advise on recommendations and provide supplementary guidance on opioid substitution treatment. The first part of this covers the choice between methadone and buprenorphine to reduce harm to opioid dependent individuals, and the appropriate supervised consumption to be considered for each drug. A comparison between this supplementary guidance and the NICE guideline has been completed which prompted a surveillance review of this guideline.

Surveillance decision

We propose to update this guideline to provide links to the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) Opioid substitution treatment: guide for keyworkers in the sections on general considerations, assessment, pharmacological interventions in opioid detoxification and opioid detoxification in community, residential, inpatient and prison settings.