Injecting equipment provision in Scotland
2024 to 2025

About this release

This annual release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) presents information on injecting equipment provision (IEP) services in Scotland. This includes the number of outlets; attendances and the types of injecting equipment distributed to people who used controlled drugs (including Novel Psychoactive Substances and Image and Performance Enhancing Drugs) in Scotland in 2024/25.

The purpose of injecting equipment provision is harm reduction. The provision of injecting equipment is effective in reducing injecting risk behaviours in people who use drugs. This intervention helps prevent the transmission of blood borne viruses such as hepatitis C and HIV among people who inject drugs. IEP services are operated either by a mix of specialist NHS or third-sector agencies working with people who inject drugs or by pharmacies who choose to supply IEP to people who use drugs.

Main points

In 2024/25:

• There were 392 IEP outlets in Scotland. This was an 8% increase compared to 2023/24 (363) and the highest number of outlets in the time series.
• There were 133,113 attendances reported by IEP outlets. This was 8% less than in 2023/24 (144,300) and one of the lowest annual attendance numbers recorded across the time series (only 2022/23 was lower: 132,541).
• Approximately 2.2 million needles and syringes and 1.6 million items of foil were distributed. The number of needles and syringes distributed decreased by 7% compared to 2023/24 and was the lowest since 2015/16. Foil distribution decreased by 9% compared to 2023/24.
• Wipes or swabs (approximately 2 million), spoons/other forms of cooker (approximately 1.3 million) and citric acid or vitamin C (approximately 1.2 million) were the most commonly distributed items of other injecting equipment.

Bar chart showing the number of attendances at IEP outlets (y-axis) over the last 8 years (x-axis). The number of attendances steadily decreased between 2016/17 and 2022/23 (approximately 132,000), there was an increase to approximately 144,000 in 2023/24, followed by a slight decrease in 2024/25 to approximately 133,000.

Close

Injecting Equipment Provision Attendances in Scotland; 2017/18 to 2024/25*

* The definition of an attendance was expanded in April 2023 to include the distribution of foil packs. This definition is used as the basis of attendance statistics from the start of 2023/24 and is illustrated as a dashed line in the above chart.

Background

IEP outlets are asked to report on the number of attendances, the number of needles and syringes, foil packs, and items of other injecting equipment distributed. In 2023/24 the definition of an attendance at an IEP outlet was expanded to include attendances where foil packs were distributed. Prior to this, attendances were only counted if the client received a barrel and/or fixed needle and syringe. This recognises changes in drug use and drug consumption and ensures that the definition of an attendance includes instances where service users sought equipment for safer alternatives to injecting. See glossary within the full report for an explanation of the types of injecting equipment provided.

PHS are aware of some issues with data quality and completeness due to inconsistencies in reporting across NHS Boards. For more details, see Appendices A1.2 and A1.3 in the full report.

Further information

The next release of this publication will be in Autumn 2026.