Needle exchange to stay until end of July

Boots had announced two weeks ago that it was pulling the safe needle disposal service for all customers needing to use personal syringes to administer drugs after concerns about incidents of abuse towards staff.

Customers had been advised to use their Grantham store, while the county’s drug support service, Addaction, was looking to arrange a temporary scheme more locally.

A Boots spokesman told The Standard last week: “We’ve agreed to continue to run it until a permanent solution has been found with Addaction.”

Addaction said they understood the needle exchange will be running at Boots, Sleaford until the end of the month, and they are looking at alternative venues to run it after that.

Fern Hensley, Contracts Manager for Addaction Lincolnshire, said: “Pharmacy-based needle exchanges help people access support from the high street, and also support people with other issues such as nutrition, nicotine replacement therapy and more.

“We understand that in this case there were difficulties and we respect the decision of Boots Sleaford to close the service. We are working with them to wind down the needle exchange service.”