According to Public Health England, every time somebody injects drugs they should be using sterile equipment – including needles and syringes, filters, cookers and swabs. But the reality is somewhat different. People who inject drugs are often put off asking for the injecting equipment that they are entitled to because of negative experiences.
We have received the following alert from PHE: There have recently been a number of cases of wound botulism among people injecting heroin in Scotland. There has been a single recent case confirmed in England and, although it is currently unknown whether there is a cross-border link, these cases might indicate an increase in the overall level of heroin contamination. A national alert has therefore been issued on the Central Alerting System (CAS).
In 2013 there were 765 deaths involving heroin and morphine in England – a sharp rise of 32% from the previous year. Many of these fatalities could have been prevented by the use of Naloxone as an intervention – this is a safe and effective prescription medicine that can reverse the effects of opioid overdoses.
Jamie Bridge the NNEF Chair was recently asked to be a speaker at TEDx in Bedford. Jamie spoke on the day about the need for a wider naloxone provision in England and the developing design of take home naloxone.
Notes from the fifth meeting of the National Intelligence Network on the health harms associated with drug use, held in London on 22nd October 2014. The meeting had a specific focus on drug harms and included an update on the activities of PHE, a briefing on nitrous oxide from DrugWatch, NPS drugs, drug harms for sex workers and links between drug use and domestic violence.
The NNEF is a standing member of the National Intelligence Network to find out more about the network and to see presentations from the meetings please visit the PHE website.
On Friday 5th December 2014, the NNEF held its latest ‘All Day Meeting’ – hosted by the Oasis Partnership in High Wycombe, and sponsored by Frontier Medical. More than 90 people attended this free event, coming from all over the UK. The day’s agenda was split into a series of informative sessions – including presentations from Public Health England, leading academics, needle exchange workers, drug user activists and leading experts.
After discussing a range of topics such as hepatitis C, performance and image enhancing drugs, syringe cleaning, and the revised NICE Guidance on NSPs – the day ended with the launch of the Naloxone Action Group (NAG England), of which NNEF is a proud member.
Robert Wolstenholme gave an overview of the work undertaken by Public Health England over the last year. He didn’t use a presentation but has sent us a set of links to the resources mentioned in his talk.
Chris and Gareth’s Presentation
2014 Annual General Meeting held in High Wycombe on 5th December following the NNEF All Day Meeting.
These guidelines produced by the World Health Organisation aim to reduce the number of deaths from opioid overdose by providing evidence-based recommendations on the availability of naloxone for people likely to witness an opioid overdose along with advice on the resuscitation and post-resuscitation care of opioid overdose in the community.
Specifically, these guidelines seek to:
In October 2014, NNEF and Release have worked together to send ‘Freedom of Information’ requests to all 152 Directors of Public Health in England – asking them about their current needle exchange provision.
Notes from the fourth meeting of the National Intelligence Network on the health harms associated with drug use, held in London on 4 June 2014. The meeting had a specific focus on hepatitis C. A series of presentations from PHE looked at prevalence, testing in prisons an modelling the impact of treatment. Further presentations from the field considered good practice in substance misuse settings from a hepatologist and a drug service point of view drug, including how workforce development can improve outcomes.
The NNEF is a standing member of the National Intelligence Network to find out more about the network and to see presentations from the meetings please visit the PHE website.