Purpose

This guidance sets out how you can prepare, monitor, identify and respond to clusters of drug-related harm.

The guidance recommends a public health incident management approach to short-term increases in drug-related harm.

This approach may be led locally by alcohol and drug partnerships (ADPs) or by NHS public health directorates. Established partnership approaches may be in place or may be developed through this guidance.

Incident management principles are well established and this guidance should be read along with the guidance on the management of public health incidents (MPHI).

This guidance has been developed by Public Health Scotland (PHS) and the National Drug Deaths Incident Management Team (NDDIMT). The NDDIMT was set up in 2022 to explore how an incident management approach could support work to reduce drug deaths.

Following establishment of national procedures to stand up a response to increased clusters of drug-related harm in Scotland and the second update of this guidance this group was stood down in April 2026.

Future updates of this guidance will be undertaken by PHS.