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Stakeholder Group
The Programme is governed by a committee of stakeholder who meet twice a year to discuss issues about the operation of the Programme. This is a policy group made up of the following parties;

Representatives of the Ministry of Health

Representatives of the Pharmaceutical Society of New Zealand Inc. who represent the professional and ethical concerns of pharmacy based outlets in the NEP.

Representatives of the Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand Inc. who represent the commercial interests of pharmacy based outlets in the Programme.

Representatives of Needle Exchange New Zealand Trust who represent the interests of the local needle exchange trusts.

Meetings of the NEP Stakeholder Group are organised by the NEST National Manager on behalf of Needle Exchange New Zealand Trust.

Local Needle Exchanges
Community Needle Exchanges in New Zealand are unique in that they provide peer based needle exchange, health education and health promotion to their local communities and are governed by local trust boards. Each Trust operates its own services at one or more locations under contract to the Ministry of Health or their local District Health Board.



A national trust called Needle Exchange New Zealand (NENZ) is a membership organisation which currently all the local trust's belong to. NENZ is a coordinating body and holds national meetings of local trust representatives twice a year. Each local trust elects its own representatives to the national board.

NENZ allows local trusts to interact and acts as a communication conduit for the sharing of resources and the resolution of issues of a non-local nature. NENZ representatives are elected to the NEP Stakeholder Group in order to represent the views of the local trusts at a national level.

The national trust also undertakes occasional health education projects such as the production of health education resources, video training resources, a Retailer Manual, which describes how the Programme operates, Quarterly newsletters, annual outlet directories and annual service reports to government.

NENZ is funded by the Ministry of Health and also supplies services through a subsidiary trust called the Needle Exchange Services Trust (NEST).


NEST employs a National Manager to facilitate communication between the local trusts, provide a key contact point and information source, maintain a national register of outlets, oversee outlet recruitment and support, production of national resources, trust administration, purchasing and supply arrangements, liaison with other agencies, website design and maintenance, organisation of national NENZ board meetings and to manage the collection and disposal of used injection equipment generated by the operation of the Needle Exchange Programme.


NEST employs two coordinators, one on each island to provide support to outlets in the programme. This involves the distribution of stock and supplies, in particular the supply of sharps containers and needle waste bins, the collection of all waste, training of outlet staff, outlet recruitment and support. These are mobile positions working from operational support vehicles (pictured above).
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