The Safer Needles Network

Download the Network Position Document in Word format

Aims and Objectives

  • The Safer Needles Network aims to minimise the number of needlestick injuries.
  • This is to be achieved by promoting preventive measures and safer systems of working such as improved training and education, use of standard (universal) precautions, the provision of safer needles and safe disposal of sharps.
  • The Network's principal objective is to facilitate implementation and compliance with the national guidance issued by NHS Employers on the management of needlestick injury*. It will achieve this by:
    - continuing to raise awareness of the risks from needlestick injuries;
    - informing and influencing key stakeholders;
    - maintaining relationships with those bodies which have a duty of care for employees in the NHS; and
    - monitoring the effectiveness of the guidance in achieving the aims of the Network.
  • The Network will seek to achieve a significant reduction in blood and body-fluid exposures so that by 2008 at least 90% of NHS Trusts can demonstrate compliance with the guidance by measuring the implementation of proper surveillance and reporting procedures, training and education and the availability of safety devices.

The Safer Needles Network

  • The membership of the Safer Needles Network is drawn from the organisations that represent health care workers, such as trade unions and professional organisations, individual clinicians with expertise in this area and manufacturers of the different technologies.
  • The Network is leading efforts to find reliable data on the incidence of, and reasons for, needlestick injuries. The intention is for the Network to become a recognised authority and resource in the UK for those requiring information about needlestick injuries and their reduction and prevention.

* March 2006 (Updated) - Chapter 19: Needle-stick injury: reducing the risk

About our Chairman

Dr. Paul Grime MBChB MSc FRCPI FFOM MBA, Consultant and Honorary Senior Lecturer in Occupational Medicine, Royal Free Hampstead NHS Trust, London.  

Dr. Grime qualified from Leicester University Medical School in 1988, and then undertook general professional training in hospital medicine.  Having completed specialist training in occupational medicine he moved to the Royal Free Hospital as a consultant in 2001.  Since 2007, he has been Director of the Occupational Health Unit at the Royal Free, which in 2008 was re-launched as the Royal Free Health and Work Centre, with innovative approaches to occupational health service delivery. 

Dr Grime has published papers on post-exposure prophylaxis for occupational exposure to HIV, the evaluation of a workplace intervention for stress, occupational health services for general practitioners and on undergraduate teaching in occupational medicine.  Dr. Grime served on the BMA Occupational Health Committee for ten years from 1998, as deputy chair from 2001-5, and chair from 2005-8. 

From 2004 to 2008 he was the occupational health representative on BMA Council and acted as a spokesperson for the BMA on healthcare associated infections.  He represented the BMA on the Health Services Advisory Committee (now the Partnership for Occupational Safety & Health in Healthcare) from 2003-8. 

Dr Grime has represented the BMA on the Safer Needles Network since 2001 and has chaired the Network since 2003.  He was a member of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine's Communications Group and chair of the Faculty Website Advisory Group from 2002-5.  He is also a member of the Health Protection Agency Centre of Infection's Advisory Group on Occupational Exposure to Blood-borne Viruses in Healthcare Workers and co-chair and co-ordinator of the Thames Occupational Health Audit and Clinical Effectiveness Group.  Dr Grime completed an MBA with the Open University Business School in 2008 and passed with merit.