Guidance

This guideline covers helping adults and young people over 16 who are dependent on opioids to stop using drugs. It aims to reduce illicit drug use and improve people’s physical and mental health, relationships and employment.

NICE has also produced a guideline on drug misuse in over 16s: psychosocial interventions.

Recommendations

This guideline includes recommendations on:

Who is it for?

  • Healthcare professionals
  • Commissioners and providers
  • People who work in specialist residential and community-based treatment settings
  • People who work in prisons and criminal justice settings
  • Adults and young people over 16 who misuse opioids and their families and carers

Is this guideline up to date?

January 2019: We have found no new evidence that affects the recommendations. For more information, see the surveillance decision.

Guideline development process

How we develop NICE guidelines

This guideline was previously called drug misuse – opioid detoxification.

Your responsibility

The recommendations in this guideline represent the view of NICE, arrived at after careful consideration of the evidence available. When exercising their judgement, professionals and practitioners are expected to take this guideline fully into account, alongside the individual needs, preferences and values of their patients or the people using their service. It is not mandatory to apply the recommendations, and the guideline does not override the responsibility to make decisions appropriate to the circumstances of the individual, in consultation with them and their families and carers or guardian.

All problems (adverse events) related to a medicine or medical device used for treatment or in a procedure should be reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency using the Yellow Card Scheme.

Local commissioners and providers of healthcare have a responsibility to enable the guideline to be applied when individual professionals and people using services wish to use it. They should do so in the context of local and national priorities for funding and developing services, and in light of their duties to have due regard to the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, to advance equality of opportunity and to reduce health inequalities. Nothing in this guideline should be interpreted in a way that would be inconsistent with complying with those duties.

Commissioners and providers have a responsibility to promote an environmentally sustainable health and care system and should assess and reduce the environmental impact of implementing NICE recommendations wherever possible.