The #ShopKind campaign has seen pharmacy employers Asda, Boots, Morrison’s, Superdrug and Tesco sign up to encourage people returning to the high street to be mindful of the essential role that keyworkers have played during the coronavirus crisis.
ShopKind aims to:
- Encourage positive behaviours in shops
- Acknowledge the important role of shopworkers
- Highlight the scale and impact of violence and abuse against shopworkers.
Consistently, in surveys of PDA members over the last three years, more than one-third of pharmacists do not feel safe for at least half of their time at work, and 20% reported not feeling physically safe for most, or any of the time (learn more).
According to the Association of Convenience Stores, there were 40,000 violent incidents in small shops in the past year. The British Retail Consortium says 400 shopworkers are abused each and every day. This is unacceptable. Violence and abuse should not be part of the job. All workers should be treated with respect, kindness and gratitude.
The retail union USDAW reports that the overwhelming majority of retail workers, around 90%, say they have been verbally abused in the last 12 months, with almost 10% physically attacked. Covid regulations have often been the trigger – but that’s no excuse.
Violence in Pharmacy
The PDA’s has a long-running campaign to end violence in pharmacies and believes that individual employers need to make sure that the public understands that there is a genuine zero tolerance of any form of violence in all community pharmacies. The PDA encourages pharmacists to display their zero tolerance of abuse in pharmacies posters, which are endorsed by the National Police Chiefs Council, in their workplace.
Related links
- PDA Violence in Pharmacy campaign
- PDA Safer Pharmacies Charter
- IWMD: Reminding everyone why safety at work is so important
- PDA releases 2020 patient safety survey results
- PDA Safer Pharmacies Survey 2019 suggests safety may be improving, but concerns remain
- PDA releases patient safety survey results (2015 to 2018)