Community Pharmacy England (CPE) has confirmed the dates of two national health campaigns pharmacy owners are “required” to take part in as outlined in the 2026-27 community pharmacy contractual framework.

The first campaign will run from October 5 to October 25 and focus on the “expectation that pharmacy staff are treated with respect”.

CPE said the campaign will help pharmacy staff “undertake their professional practice safely” and will be “in the best interest of both patients and the people working in our pharmacies”.

Read more: ‘Strangulation, pushing, punching’ - damning CPE survey on abuse

The second campaign will promote Pharmacy First from February 1, 2027 to February 21, 2027, and pharmacy owners can use their existing Pharmacy First assets for this campaign.

To meet requirements, pharmacies need to display campaign posters and leaflets, publish information about the campaigns on their website or social media channels, and can also include it in emails or message sent to patients.

Abuse

CPE said the first campaign will help combat pharmacies facing abusive behaviour as a “daily occurrence”, a finding from its survey of 289 pharmacy workers across 3,000 premises, published in March.

Three quarters of respondents said they were experiencing abuse “at least weekly” and while physical abuse was less common, incidents included “strangulation, pushing, punching, objects being thrown” and “attacks after closing time”.

CPE chief executive Janet Morrison said at the time that the findings “reflect escalating abuse in one of the NHS’s most accessible frontline services” and “show an urgent need for stronger system-wide protections”.

Read more: CPE working on ‘coordinated’ plan to tackle pharmacy abuse

In April, CPE said it had set up a five-pronged programme to tackle patient violence and abuse in pharmacies.

The negotiator met with NHSE and the chief pharmaceutical officer for England David Webb to discuss the survey findings, and Webb is “supporting a number of workstreams”.

It comes after a regional Pharmacists’ Defence Association committee in July discussed an increase in abuse from patients, paired with a reluctance from multiples to ban offenders from returning to branches.