Needle Exchange for Young People (under 18's)

Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council are inviting quotes from a number of organisations who might be able to provide Pharmacy Needle Exchange for young people (under 18's).

Guidance published in 2014 from NICE ( https://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/PH52 ) urges local Safeguarding Boards to have oversight of policies which ensure that needle and syringe exchange is available to under-18s who become involved in injecting drug use.

There is growing evidence in Rotherham that injecting heroin is once again an emerging issue for young people in specific pockets of the Borough and the population.

This 'request for quote' aims to outline the specification of the service required to meet the needs of this vulnerable group.

The emergence of New Psychoactive Substances (NPS) is also partly responsible for a recent upsurge in injecting behaviour, which has remained fairly static nationally for the last 10 years.

There are a number of both new drugs and new practices emerging that have become popular with young people and whilst the overall strategy remains around prevention of use and preventing escalation of harm, there remains a small cohort who will experiment with this route of administration and for whom there needs to be an adequate and comprehensive arrangement in place.

Young people can self-refer to Know the Score (young people's drug and alcohol service), and needle and syringe is one of the services that they advertise being available, however this requires a level of engagement and commitment which some people are not ready to take.

Accessing equipment in an already established pharmacy needle exchange should be seen as a way of encouraging a lower threshold of young people into services, and getting pharmacists to report these interventions in order to track more information about the individuals and the patterns of use across the Borough.