Mr. Tom Murray:

Currently, we have approximately 100 pharmacies offering needle exchange services, which is quite a low figure out of a total of 1,800. I am not exactly sure how many are currently providing methadone services and OST. That number fluctuates depending on patient need and presentation. In response to the question, with more than 78 million visits to pharmacies per year, pharmacies need more resources and training in terms of symptom recognition, noticing and picking up on the signs of drug addiction, to be able to signpost people with addiction problems to the correct services.