PHE - Corporate - Acute Drug Harms Surveillance and Early Warning System in UK

Public Health England (PHE) is seeking to commission an external partner with an existing system and / or capability to deliver an opioid and new psychoactive substances (NPS) clinical harms surveillance programme. The programme will: • rapidly detect any incident involving synthetic opioids in the heroin or cocaine markets; • monitor the emergence of a synthetic opioid market as seen in North America; • identify health harms associated with toxicity from emerging/new NPS, such as synthetic cannabinoids. The programme will involve laboratory testing of biological samples from A&E patients around the UK who have been treated for adverse reactions to illicit drugs. Participating A&E departments will take and submit biological samples from suitable patients. These samples will be toxicologically analysed and assessed, alongside other intelligence sources. Any emerging trends and signals of interest will be reported to PHE to ensure that drug health harms are identified and acted upon promptly.