Four out of five (82 per cent) pharmacies have seen instances of racist abuse directed towards staff in the past year, a new survey ran by ITV News and the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has found.
More than one in three (35 per cent) had been abused most days whilst around 40 per cent of pharmacies also said they had experienced physical abuse.
The NPA has warned of a “disturbing change in attitudes” from a minority of patients, which has resulted in abuse being directed towards pharmacy staff that must be tackled.
Olivier Picard, chair of the National Pharmacy Association, said: “The results of this survey are truly disturbing and paint a picture of a rising tide of abuse and even violent behaviour towards hard working pharmacy staff, who are simply trying their best to support their patients.
“I am particularly disgusted to hear of increasing levels of racist abuse being directed towards pharmacy teams, which we must all work to stamp out.
“Although this represents a very small minority of the 1.6 million people who visit a pharmacy every day in England, increasing levels abuse risks staff leaving pharmacy all together, something we can ill afford.
“The NHS and Department of Health have always rightly said that we should have a zero tolerance approach towards abuse of NHS staff.
“But we now need this rhetoric to match actions. GP colleagues have been afforded funding to make security changes but this has never been offered to community pharmacies, despite 90 per cent of our work being carried out for the NHS.
“This must change so pharmacies can make the security changes they need to help protect their staff from this worrying uptick in abusive behaviour from patients.
“Anyone visiting a community pharmacy should always treat teams serving them with patience and tolerance.”