HARM REDUCTION
HARM REDUCTION FIRST
The NNEF reconvened after six years with an urgent mission to reach those outside treatment, as DDN reports. Photos by Ethan Moult
After a six-year gap, the National Needle Exchange Forum( NNEF) returned with a renewed focus on the need for standalone, specialist harm reduction services. Opening the Birmingham event, chair Philippe Bonnet led a minute’ s silence for those lost to drug-related deaths and reflected on the changes since the last gathering.‘ Back then we didn’ t have crack pipe schemes or drug consumption rooms,’ he said.‘ Some things have changed – but there is a lot more that needs to be done.’
Speaking on behalf of a group of harm reduction advocates, Chris Rintoul argued that specialist harm reduction had been squeezed by integration into treatment services. Tracing its roots back to 1980s Liverpool, he said harm reduction had since been absorbed by recovery-focused systems that weren’ t always equipped to deliver it well.‘ One-stop shops can work,’ he said,‘ but when harm reduction is bolted to treatment you miss everyone who’ s not in treatment.’ He warned that many newer staff had had little exposure to harm reduction expertise, as experienced workers and dedicated roles had steadily disappeared.
NITAZENE WAVE Retired GP Dr Judith Yates presented death data gathered from coroners in the West Midlands, identifying more than 1,000 drug-related fatalities between 2009 and 2023. The last three years were particularly concerning, she said, with nitazenes driving a new wave of deaths. A single Birmingham batch was believed to have killed 30 people, while barriers to toxicology testing meant they were often misidentified as fentanyls. Two key at-risk groups who were not engaged with services were teenagers buying pills online and people in temporary accommodation using contaminated heroin, she warned. Eleanor Clarke from the UK Health Security Agency( UKHSA) presented an early-stage pilot looking at NSP provision across 31 services. Between November 2024 and February 2025, nearly 1m needles were dispensed, with blue packs most common. The average user was a 43-yearold white man, she said, with more than 500 people reporting using image- and performanceenhancing drugs( IPEDs). She described the pilot as a first step in‘ a big piece of work’ to improve national understanding of NSP activity.
LIVED EXPERIENCE Reflecting on the power of lived experience in harm reduction, The Hepatitis C Trust’ s Stuart Smith said his organisation employed more than 100 peers and had five harm reduction hubs designed and run by people with lived experience. A 2023 pharmacy mapping project had
14 • DRINK AND DRUGS NEWS • JULY / AUGUST 2025 WWW. DRINKANDDRUGSNEWS. COM