Pharmacy staff being abused by customers
PHARMACY staff are facing harm to their mental wellbeing because of abusive customers, a health board has warned.
One pharmacy manager has described the stress caused by staff “bearing the brunt” of frustrated customers.
Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board has called for customers to be kinder.
“Sadly we’re hearing reports of members of the public being abusive to staff in local community pharmacies,” they said. “We understand that it can be very stressful when you or a loved one is unwell, or trying to sort out medication, but our pharmacy teams are doing their best to help you. Community NHS services are under a lot of pressure at the moment and negative comments, anger and frustration can have a big impact on our colleagues’ personal wellbeing and mental health at an already stressful time.”
The health board spokesman said abuse of healthcare workers would not be tolerated, adding: “Please speak to our pharmacy colleagues as you would like to be spoken to, and treat them with kindness.”
Nathan Davies, manager of Sheppards Pharmacy in Pencoed, Bridgend, said hostility from some customers had “become part of the job”.
He said it had the biggest emotional impact on staff working on the shop floor, who take the brunt of the abuse.
“For whatever reason, since the start of December we have been massively busy,” he said. “People are having to wait longer and are having to queue outside as we still have restrictions in place on how many people we can have in – and it’s cold outside. The staff on the front of the shop are bearing the brunt of it. It’s not good for their morale.”
He said there were a number of reasons for the increased frustration towards community pharmacy staff across the health board and beyond, though it was largely out of their control.
He said: “The abuse is mostly about having to wait. The volume of prescriptions in the country is high – about 50% of people are on some sort of prescription. If you went back 10 or 20 years, you would have nowhere near that figure, so that’s adding to it. Over Christmas there were also issues with so many people wanting lateral flow tests which meant we had to ration them per person, but luckily that has subsided now.”