PGR Placement - Natalie Hopkins - Leeds Safe Injecting Facility

Natalie Hopkins was a Postgraduate Researcher from the school of Biomedical Sciences, and completed a 3-month placement at Human Kind.

The purpose of this project was to explore the views and perspectives of key stakeholders in Leeds looking at the benefits, limitations and identifying any determinants (i.e barriers and facilitators) of operating a Safe Injecting Facility (SIF) in Leeds.  A SIF is a site which permits the administration and consumption of already purchased street drugs in the presence of trained staff who monitor for overdose or risky injection practices and can treat drug users safely and quickly if necessary.  Natalie interviewed eight stakeholders online. Three overarching themes emerged from the data: (1) socio-economic and healthcare derived benefits of operating a service, (2) challenging public perception and reducing stigma, (3) combating barriers and challenges for operating an SIF.

All participants expressed positivity and optimism towards operating a SIF and highlighted advantages such as reduced overdose deaths, reduced medical complications that often lead to hospitalisation, reduced crime rates and advocating of services to individuals not currently seeking treatment. Stigma was emphasised as an important barrier that requires a whole systems approach to challenge and shift culture. Lastly, if the time is not right, both politically and locally, participants offered alternatives such as an assisted treatment programme whereby drugs are prescribed, and individuals engage in treatment through the programme.

The project was successful in achieving the aims and objectives set out, with 8 hugely informative and data-rich interviews conducted and a detailed report produced. The themes that emerged from the data supported the pre-existing benefits of SIF’s in the literature and outlined challenges of operating the service with potential ways to address such challenges.

Project lead, Mark Crowe, was impressed with Natalie's work and provided this feedback:

“It’s been a pleasure working with Natalie, she got to grips with the project really quickly even though it was a new area of work for her. The interviews she carried out were very professionally done and yielded rich data. Natalie’s analysis was insightful and structured so well that we used it as a template for the companion pieces to her work. Humankind is grateful for the support the LSSI in enabling this project to happen. We’ve had good communication with the team. This is has been a good piece of work which is being considered by senior managers in Humankind as part of the decision making process about pursuing a safe injection facility in Leeds.”

Natalie felt the benefits of this three-month placement as she felt that conducting research in areas that are external to her field was an important development opportunity. It allowed her to build on her interpersonal skills and qualitative research skills. This placement had a positive impact on her as she intends to stay in contact with Mark for any future work or collaboration opportunities.