ALL nursing students at the University of Bradford will now receive training on how to use a life-saving medication called naloxone - which can reverse overdoses caused by opiates.

The training, which will be given to around 400 student nurses every year, is being delivered in partnership with New Vision Bradford, which is commissioned to deliver drug and alcohol treatment in the area.

Assistant professor Natalie Finch, a registered mental health nurse who is experienced in working with people who use opiates, said teaching all student nurses how to use the kits was understood to be a first for a UK university.

"Naloxone has been available in the UK for individuals to carry for around 10 years," she said. 

"While nurse education requires students to know how to respond to emergencies such as someone's heart stopping, choking or serious allergic reaction, there is currently no national requirement for nurses to know how to respond to an overdose.

"We think this is wrong. 

"We are, as far as we know, the first university in the UK to train all our nurses in how to administer naloxone.

"This is about harm reduction.

"One element of that is how do we stop people dying of preventable overdoses.

"One of the things we can do is train people to use naloxone kits which, when administered immediately temporarily reverse the effects of an opioid overdose, which buys valuable time for the emergency services to attend.

"Naloxone kits are simple to use and widely available and can make a huge difference on the rate of deaths by overdose, which has been growing year on year for some time."

Jon Findlay, national harm reduction lead for Humankind, the national charity which leads the New Vision Bradford partnership, added: "This is the first time we have done mass training of this sort and it has been very useful, both in terms of delivering the training and also being able to address the stigma around drug use.

"Naloxone is an amazing medicine and I believe it should be in every first aid kit and alongside every defibrillator in the country.

"This is ultimately about reducing deaths from drug overdoses.

"Some have argued it might encourage drug use but there is no evidence for that.

"That is rather like saying wearing a seat belt encourages you to drive more recklessly."