Summary
A local watchdog's visits to 48 community pharmacies in an inner London borough in April 2022, recording hearing loops, counters, consultation rooms and signs, with each pharmacy's response.
Key findings
- The nine-loop total is the report's summary on PDF page 11. Its detailed findings include sign-only observations: the Boots E8 2NS entry describes a loop sticker that staff did not recognise. Such entries do not independently establish working equipment, so the summary should not be converted into nine successful listening checks.
- Four authorised representatives visited the 48 Hackney pharmacies signed up to the NHS Community Pharmacist Consultation Service over a month in April 2022, using a checklist; pharmacies were told that visits were planned but not the dates and times.
- Nine pharmacies had an induction loop, but staff at two of them were either unaware of it or did not know how to use it; 39 were recommended to install a loop and to train staff once it was in place.
- At one pharmacy a sticker showed that a loop was available but the staff did not know how to use it; the pharmacy later replied that the loop was operational and staff had been retrained. Another replied that it had no funds for a loop and asked whether council or other funding was available.
- All 48 had a room for private consultations, but some rooms were too small for a comfortable conversation, inaccessible, or used for storage and office space, and staff at those pharmacies said a private conversation would have to take place outside the pharmacy. The authors note that chairs placed near the counter or the consultation room could create issues with confidentiality.
- Describes the requirement, under the NHS Healthy Living Pharmacy criteria from 1 January 2021, that almost all pharmacies have a consultation room where patient and pharmacist can sit and talk at normal speaking volumes without being overheard, with telephone or live audio and video arrangements where premises are too small for one.
Limits
A record of what was present, made by lay visitors with a checklist: the report does not say that loops were tested by listening or measured, or how staff knowledge was checked. One London borough. 24 of the 46 pharmacies given recommendations replied. The cover dates the audit April 2022; the report includes replies up to November 2022 and is listed in Healthwatch England's library on 17 January 2023.
Read the original
Cited in
- What works in hospitals, clinics and pharmacies, where a misheard word can matter most?Partly answered
Cite this source
Healthwatch Hackney. Accessibility Audit of Hackney's Community Pharmacies. Healthwatch Hackney (reports library of Healthwatch England). 17 January 2023. https://nds.healthwatch.co.uk/sites/default/files/reports_library/20230117_Hackney_Pharmacies-Accessibility-Audit-report-April-2022.pdf (accessed 13 October 2026).
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