Police forces in Wales will be contacting community pharmacies to reassure pharmacists and their teams about the support they can provide to protect staff and pharmacy premises.
This is in response to feedback from our members of significant increases in hostility, threats and violence directed towards community pharmacy teams.
Commenting on the development, RPS Wales Director Elen Jones said,
“It must be noted that the majority of the public have been hugely supportive and understanding of the current pressures on pharmacy teams. However, given the nature of the reports from our members, we felt that it was appropriate for us to highlight these concerns to police forces in Wales.
We are thankful that the police have listened to our concerns and are proactively taking additional steps to support and ensure the safety of pharmacy teams”.
Assistant Chief Constable Nigel Harrison, Chair the All Wales Police Gold Commander Group for Covid 19 added,
“We recognise the key role of pharmacies in our communities and as such we are more than happy to offer assistance. We will robustly deal with those who feel it is acceptable to act in an aggressive way to our pharmacy teams doing such great work at this time. We urge any pharmacy team who wants support to get in touch with their local policing team”.