With more customers expected on the high street in the coming weeks, Boots says it is using learnings from the past two months to introduce new safe shopping and working measures for its customers, patients and staff.

Measures include "upgraded" PPE for staff members, revised social distancing guides and new equipment, customer hand sanitising stations and digital beauty advice.

Other safety measures include managing the number of people in store, a triaging process for assessing different customers’ needs, dedicated social distancing champions, one-way routes for selected stores and more signage to help maintain two-metre social distancing.

Additional perspex screens will cover all counters, tills, self-checkouts and areas that have not been recently utilised. Staff members will continue to provided with perspex visors and other PPE equipment. Hand sanitising stations are being trialled in stores and key touch points will be regularly cleaned, says Boots.

The company is also exploring geo-targeted ads that will let people know when their local store is less busy.

Boots announced in April that it had temporarily shuttered 60 stores due to lower footfall while lockdown restrictions are in place, including a number of stores in central London. A spokeperson told Pharmacy Network News today that some of these stores have been reopened and that the company will provide an update on the remaining stores "in the coming weeks".