Case Study - Torbay

Sharps mapped out to reduce harm

Since 2002 Torbay Council has collected, counted and mapped sharps found in the public domain. The scheme, which was taken further through Defra-funded research in 2004, is now continued locally. Recent pilot projects aim to educate users and staff in drug-related litter.

In 2002, Torbay Council realised that if they were going to deal with drug-related litter (DRL) effectively they needed to work with a range of key partners and collect basic data to robustly map the extent of the problem.

All key partners were identified: Environmental Services, Car Parks, Highways, the police and the Safer Community Coordinator, and it was then agreed that a needle register would be set up to record every needle or syringe that was reported or found. The council also set up a reporting line for needles and promoted the line to the public.

Project steering group

In February 2004, Torbay Council spoke at the ENCAMS national drug litter conference and agreed to become part of a pilot project assessing further ways of reducing drugs litter.

A project steering group was set up consisting of ENCAMS, Torbay Council (Environmental Policy) and Safer Communities Torbay (Torbay Drug and Alcohol Action Team, Torbay Harm Reduction Coordinator), with members of the police and Devon Drug Services co-opted into the group as needed.

Assessing attitudes to DRL

In September 2004, Defra funded ENCAMS to carry out market research on behalf of the Torbay pilot project. The aim of the research was to gain an understanding of hotspot communities’ attitudes to drug-related litter and determine effective messages to raise awareness and encourage appropriate community action. It also informed the production of a practitioner guide entitled ‘Engaging the Community with Drug Litter Campaigns’.

2,000 problematic drug users

Torbay has a population of around 130,000. It is made up of three conurbations – Torquay, Paignton and Brixham – and has approximately 2,000 problematic drug users, 439 of whom are in treatment.

The key drug-related litter areas proved to be public conveniences, car parks, parks and open spaces. Once areas were identified, partner organisations worked together to tackle hotspots, by refurbishing public toilets, improving lighting, introducing public sharps boxes, cutting back vegetation in parks, restricting access at specific times of day to hotspot areas and developing a community parks warden scheme.

Campaign aimed at users

During 2006 Safer Communities Torbay undertook quantitative research with ‘registered’ injecting drug users to find out more about their public injecting and needle disposal behaviours. This research indicated that drug users were generally aware of the risks to the public from drug-related litter and were mostly responsible needle disposers.

As a result of these findings, Safer Communities Torbay is currently planning a drug-litter campaign, specifically aimed at drug users, incorporating ideas generated by service users. A competition hosted during the summer of 2006 saw service users enter ideas that are now being used to develop posters, leaflets and other educational materials for the campaign.

The campaign is being designed in partnership with injecting service users, and will be delivered to injecting users in core places such as needle exchanges, drug services, day centres, etc.

DRL associated with fear of crime

Drug-related litter consists of many items, from medicines packaging, to cigarette ends, to discarded needles and syringes. Whilst the number of discarded needles found in the public domain in Torbay remains relatively low, Safer Communities Torbay is very aware of the associated fear of crime and anti-social behaviour.

After several years of knowledge-gaining on the subject, Safer Communities Torbay is looking to develop a strategy on managing public injection use and drug-related litter, using Defra guidance to meet local needs. Once developed, the strategy will be shared with local and national authorities.

Training to map sharps

A wide range of operational staff working for Torbay Council – e.g. security, street wardens, cleansing staff – undertake training to collect, count and map sharps.

Recently, Safer Communities Torbay has also commissioned a harm reduction outreach service staffed by drug workers, with the specific aim of making face-to-face contact with injecting drug users known to congregate and/or use drugs in the public domain. Outreach workers have also been trained and equipped to remove drug-related litter.

The sharps collection kit contains rubber gloves, spray disinfectant, sharps bin, plastic tweezers, a yellow clinical waste sack and surgical wet wipes.

Installing sharps bins

"Sharps continue to be collected in the public domain. However, there are some issues about the design quality of the public sharps bins in use as they have been prone to vandalism." - Helen Wilks, Harm Reduction Coordinator

Helen thinks that any local authorities planning on installing public sharps bins should take these factors into account when deciding on the specific products to be installed.

"Needle data collected also indicates that seasonal issues impact on the numbers collected, for example in summertime when grounds are cleared, larger amounts of sharps which have collected over time are found" - Helen Wilks

For more information, please contact Helen Wilks at helen.wilks@nhs.net