NSP provision in England is increasingly neglected and its benefits poorly understood, says a report from the Hepatitis C Trust.
The ‘vast majority’ of local authorities do not have an adequate picture of NSP coverage in their area, says Out of reach: declining access to needle and syringe programmes in England and the threat to public health, with only around a quarter of the councils that responded to the trust’s FOI request meeting the criteria for ‘strong’ understanding of NSP provision.
Provision rates are also falling, the report warns, with a third of pharmacies contacted by the trust for its 2023 mapping exercises saying they’d since stopped providing it.
Local intelligence on NSP provision – from drug services, online directories and other sources – was also inaccurate, with less than half of the pharmacies identified as providing NSP actually doing so. The trust’s research also identified widespread quality issues with NSP services, where national guidance was not being followed, the document states.
‘NSP is one of the UK’s quiet public health success stories, helping to prevent thousands of infections and reducing the long-term costs associated with blood-borne viruses, drug harms and premature mortality,’ says the report. ‘Yet despite its proven effectiveness NSP provision in England is increasingly neglected.’
The report calls for data collection on NSP to be included in the core data set used by local authorities for their drug service contract monitoring, as well as for OHID to commission a ‘comprehensive national evaluation’ of NSP provision to inform national and local planning. ‘This should seek to capture both current provision and the rate of service closure, as well as understanding the reasons for this,’ the document states. DHSC should also set out its ‘clear long-term vision’ for NSP in the context of the elimination of hep C and HIV, including ‘clear resourcing to implement and safeguard this’.
‘With no consistent national system for monitoring community pharmacy NSP provision in England, changes in provision – including services closing, reducing their offer or introducing access restrictions – may go undetected at both a local and a national level,’ says the report. ‘A national monitoring system should therefore be established to provide an up-to-date picture of NSP provision, including where services are operating, the type and quantity of equipment available, and key aspects of service accessibility and quality.’
See the October issue of DDN for a full round-up of the National Harm Reduction Summit 2026, including where next for NSP provision.
Out of reach: declining access to needle and syringe programmes in England and the threat to public health available here