An online click-and-collect service for needles and drug equipment has been set up by a national treatment charity as the sector seeks to adapt to the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We Are With You, which provides drug and alcohol treatment services in 80 locations in England and
Scotland, has started the initiative in Truro in Cornwall, the Scottish Borders, Dumfries and Galloway, Argyll and Bute and Glasgow.
The scheme is one of a number of changes that drug treatment services have introduced to adapt to the restrictive lockdown environment, with others including restructuring of supervised consumption of heroin substitute treatment, and door-to-door delivery of the anti-overdose medication naloxone.
But senior directors at the charity have criticised the government for failing to enact measures earlier in the pandemic that could have simplified the provision of opioid substitute therapy (OST) with methadone or buprenorphine.
People who use drugs are vulnerable during the pandemic due to itinerant lifestyles, underlying health conditions and limited access to public health information. Drug-related deaths in England and Wales had already hit a record high before coronavirus struck.
