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Needle and Syringe Programme Activity in Wales Annual Report 2025 to 2026

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Authors: Substance Misuse Programme, Health Protection Team, Public Health Wales

Published on: 27th July 2026

This report for 2025-26 evidences the sustained and substantial reduction in the activity of people who use drugs (PWID) accessing needle and syringe programmes (NSP) across Wales since 2020. This is the first NSP publication since 20221 as it was necessary to conduct an evaluation of these services in Wales to understand these changes. Work is ongoing to conclude the findings of these evaluations.

Due to difficulties contacting PWID who are not engaging in services, trends should be interpreted with caution as they are likely influenced by a range of factors. Therefore, it cannot currently be ruled out that the reduction in NSP activity is not associated with increased use of alternative sources of injecting equipment (i.e. online purchases), a reduction in PWID accessing NSP services resulting in increased sharing and reuse, a real reduction in PWID, or a combination of these and possibly other factors.

Changes to the Harm Reduction Database (HRD) may impact the completeness of data recording and influence the findings in this report. More information on the history of changes to the HRD and data quality and completeness can be found in Appendices A
and B.

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