"Nothing about us, without us"

[Jimi]

Jimi Grieve (NUN/HUG) and Alex Flemming (NTA) to inform you of a new publication:

'Nothing about us, without us' - The English user representatives' report from the 2007 International Harm Reduction Association Conference
Earlier this year the NTA sponsored 11 service user representatives to attend the IHRA Conference in Warsaw with the intention of collecting information on new evidence based initiatives to reduce drug related harm with the aim of identifying examples of international good practice that could inform and improve harm reduction services in the England.

The report is an excellent account of the groups findings which concludes that further establishment and improvement of harm reduction in England must be achieved with users at the heart of the process.

The report can be found as a downloadable PDF at:

http://www.nta.nhs.uk/publications/publications.aspx?CategoryID=20

Alternatively,  additional individual hard copies or bulk orders for distribution can be obtained by phoning:

08701 555 455 and quoting product code IHRA

[Wolves]

Just reading the above report and it is very interesting.

One comment to make on page 13 and 14 it talks about a Finnish Needle Exchange that use an anonymous SMS service which was highlighted as good practice. Well I just wanted to say our Service User Involvement Team has been running a service like this for about 3 months. Currently we have over 50 members and use it to inform poeple of our activitives, user group meetings etc and to canvas views on subjects such as how to improve of Addiction Services Pharmacy and also run a Drug Contamination Warning service, where by you can text us details of any dodgy gear etc anonymously and we will forward that onto all our other members. All service user have to do it text SUIT GO to 88010 to sign up, and all text we send out are free for the service users.

If anyone wants more details let me know. Might ave guessed the home of Nokia, Ericcson etc would beat us to it tho hehe :-)