UK SAYS NO MORE, a national campaign to end domestic abuse, is working with pharmacies across the UK to introduce Safe Spaces in their consultation rooms. These Safe Spaces are designed to provide a safe and discreet way for victims of domestic violence to contact friends and family and specialist support services.
The new scheme replaces ‘Ask for ANI’, as part of the next stage in the campaign to end domestic violence. Safe Spaces differs from the Ask for ANI codeword in that it is a self-service model and the role of the staff member is only to provide a quiet and private space.
Over 1,000 pharmacies have already signed up to take part in the scheme, including Boots, Morrisons, Superdrug, and independent pharmacies.
President of the PDA NAWP Network, Lourette Latif Philips said, “Pharmacists and their teams are ideally placed at the frontline of healthcare to provide a quiet and confidential space for individuals to access information and support. The Safe Spaces scheme is not just for patients but also for employees too, as anyone can be affected by domestic abuse. I hope all pharmacies and other companies join the scheme and ensure their teams are trained to provide support.”
Reports show that in England and Wales, 2.1 million adults were victims of domestic abuse in the year ending March 2023, which means this has not significantly changed since the previous year.
Some groups are more likely to be victims of domestic abuse, with two-thirds being women, and disabled women being twice as likely to experience abuse than non-disabled women. There are also additional factors that can be involved in domestic abuse that affect minority groups. For example, victims from ethnic minority backgrounds may be deterred from accessing support services if they fear deportation, have language needs, fear racism from agencies, or worry they’ll be rejected by their family or community. People who identify as LGBT+ could have their sexuality and gender identity used against them by the abuser, such as threatening to out the victim’s sexuality.
The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence campaign aims to help all victims of violence by encouraging individuals, governments, and companies and institutions to:
- End impunity by advocating for and establishing laws and policies that hold perpetrators accountable.
- Adopt, implement and fund National Action Plans to end gender-based violence. These plans define policy and investment decisions that governments make.
- Invest in solutions to prevent gender-based violence.
The PDA is encouraging all pharmacy employers to take action against gender-based violence by adopting the Safe Spaces scheme. Pharmacists who wish to alert their employer to the programme and ask them to introduce it in their workplace can use the email template below.
Dear [EMPLOYER’S NAME],
I am writing to you to ask you to consider signing the pharmacy up to the Safe Spaces programme. The scheme aims to offer people experiencing domestic abuse a safe space to reach out for help from family, friends, and specialist support services. It is organised and ran by Hestia, which is a crisis charity that supports survivors of domestic abuse.
To take part in the programme, we would just need to offer the consultation room in the pharmacy as a Safe Space to the local community.
As the Safe Spaces scheme is a self-service model, the role of staff members is only to provide a quiet and private space, where a person in need can phone for support.
Over 6,000 pharmacies, banks and building societies across the UK are already delivering the Safe Spaces scheme. It’s Hestia’s ambition that there will be a Safe Space on every high street for people experiencing domestic abuse to access the support they need.
If you do decide to opt-in, Hestia will provide us with the training, posters and monitoring systems that may be necessary to deliver Safe Spaces.
I very much hope we will be able to offer our consultation room as a vital Safe Space for those who need it.
You can find out more about the scheme and signing up to it by visiting uksaysnomore.org.
Kind regards,
[YOUR NAME]
Get involved
- Send the email template to your employer
- Sign up to the scheme here
- Follow the PDA NAWP Network on social media using the hashtag #PDAnawp
- For more information about the PDA NAWP Network, click here
- If you would like to get involved with the network and its activities, please email: [email protected]
Learn more
- Safe Spaces
- UK SAYS NO MORE
- 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence
- Domestic abuse in England and Wales overview: November 2023
- Disabled people and domestic abuse spotlight
- Domestic violence and abuse and LGBT+ communities
- Rise: Black and Minoritised Communities
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Membership is FREE to pharmacy students, trainee pharmacists and for the first three months of being newly qualified.
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