The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7493 p298
15 March 2008

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Pharmacies not protected by anti-violence provisions for NHS

Community pharmacists will not be given the same level of protection from abusive patients as hospital-based health staff.

That seems to be the Government view, expressed by Lord Bassam of Brighton, a Home Office spokesman in the House of Lords.

During a debate on the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill this week, Lord Bassam opposed a proposed amendment that would have extended a new criminal offence of causing nuisance or disturbance on NHS premises to cover community pharmacies and hospices.

As drafted, the offence will be committed if the behaviour takes place in an NHS hospital building, its grounds or in other buildings within the grounds.

He said: “Simply extending these provisions, which are specifically designed for hospitals, to the wider NHS is both unjustifiable and would make them unfit for purpose as it would assume the problem exists in the same way in other healthcare settings as it does in hospitals, and that the correct method to deal with nuisance or disturbance behaviour in these settings is to remove the person from the premises.”

Lord Bassam added: “I do not consider that the problem is identical in other healthcare settings or that the solution to deal with the problem in other healthcare settings should be the same.”