Discrimination, bias, and respectful professional behaviour

Inclusive pharmacy practice depends on staff behaviour as well as service design. People can be excluded by overt discrimination and by quieter actions such as dismissive language, stereotyping, repeated misnaming, poor privacy, or assumptions about a person’s understanding.

Forms of unfair treatment that matter in practice

• Direct discrimination: treating someone less favourably because of a protected characteristic.
• Indirect discrimination: applying a policy or routine that appears neutral but puts a particular group at a disadvantage without good justification.
• Harassment: unwanted conduct that violates dignity or creates a humiliating, hostile, degrading, or offensive environment.
• Victimisation: disadvantaging someone because they raised, supported, or were connected to a complaint about discrimination.

Pharmacy teams should also remember discrimination can arise through association or perception. A person may be treated badly because staff assume their religion, sexual orientation, or because they care for a disabled relative.

How bias can show up at the counter, on the phone, or in the consultation room

• Assuming poor understanding or poor adherence: for example because of age, ethnicity, disability, or accent.
• Talking to the carer, interpreter, or partner instead of the patient: even when the patient can participate directly.
• Using jokes, comments, or nicknames that feel small to staff but humiliating to the patient: especially about appearance, religion, sexuality, or gender.
• Offering a thinner service: rushing explanations, avoiding eye contact, not offering the consultation room, or failing to explore medicines concerns properly.
• Letting personal beliefs distort care: professional standards require staff to recognise their own values but not impose them on others.

Bias often appears in ordinary behaviour: rushing, stereotyping, joking, ignoring preferences, or giving a less usable service. In pharmacy, respectful professional behaviour is not optional courtesy; it is part of safe care.