Prescribing for opioid dependence in Scotland
2025 to 2026

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) provides updated statistics on opioid agonist therapy (OAT) prescribing in Scotland.

OAT is an evidence-based treatment for opioid dependence that aims to reduce illicit opioid use and associated harms. This report provides an overview of OAT prescribing in both community and prison settings in Scotland, including data on prescriptions dispensed and estimates of the number of individuals receiving treatment.

In previous years, OAT statistics were published as management information on the Scottish Public Health Observatory (ScotPHO) topic pages. As updates to ScotPHO are currently suspended, this new publication series provides updated information to financial year 2025/26.

Main points

For community prescribing in 2025/26:

• It is estimated that a minimum of 26,851 people in Scotland were prescribed an opioid agonist therapy (OAT) medication for the treatment of opioid dependence. This was a 4%decrease compared to 2024/25 (28,015). 
• Methadone was prescribed to a minimum of 16,502 people. 
• Oral buprenorphine was prescribed to a minimum of 6,681 people.
• Injectable buprenorphine was prescribed to a minimum of 4,739 people.

OAT prescribing has changed since the beginning of the time series in 2016/17. Based on Average Daily Quantity (ADQ):

• Overall, OAT prescribing decreased from 5.25 ADQ doses per 1,000 population per day in 2016/17 to 4.36 in 2025/26.
• Methadone decreased from 91% of all OAT dispensing in 2016/17 to 65% in 2025/26;
• Injectable buprenorphine increased from <1% of OAT dispensing in 2019/20 to 18% in 2025/26; and,
• Oral buprenorphine gradually increased from 2% of OAT dispensing in 2016/17 to 16% in 2025/26.

For Scottish prisons in September 2026:

• A total of 1,920 (22.7%) prisoners in Scotland were receiving OAT.
• Of the prisoners prescribed OAT, 46% were prescribed injectable buprenorphine, 40% were prescribed methadone, and 14% were prescribed oral buprenorphine.

Between 2016/17 and 2022/23 the number of estimated people prescribed OAT on the Prescribing Information System (PIS) remained stable, ranging from 29,176 and 29,744. Since 2023/24 (28,537) the number of estimated people prescribed OAT on PIS has steadily decreased to 25,343 in 2025/26. Since 2021/22 the number of estimated people prescribed OAT on both PIS and the Hospital Medicine Utilisation Database (HMUD) has decreased from 30,058 to 26,930 in 2025/26.

Close

Estimated number of people prescribed OAT by financial year and data source (Scotland: 2016/17 to 2025/26)

Background

This report provides an overview of OAT dispensing in community and prison settings in Scotland. It presents data on the number and type of OAT prescriptions dispensed, alongside estimates of the number of patients prescribed OAT. The OAT medications described in this report include methadone, buprenorphine, buprenorphine/naloxone, and long-acting injectable buprenorphine preparations such as Buvidal®.

There are a number of known data quality limitations associated with these figures. Estimates of individuals prescribed OAT are primarily derived from Community Health Index (CHI) data and may be affected by incomplete CHI capture. While prison prescribing data are subject to limitations relating to data coverage, comparability, and manual data collection processes. Further information on data quality, completeness and methodologies used is provided in this report.

Further information

The next release will be Autumn 2027.