Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 26 November 2020
I am more than happy to address that. Jeremy Balfour also raised a few issues that I have committed to raising with Humza Yousaf. Members will not be surprised to hear that justice colleagues are involved with the equally safe board and that we consult all the time. Nonetheless, I am happy to take forward that specific issue.
Early on in the pandemic when everyone was going into the sanctuary of their home, we realised very quickly—within days, in fact—that, for many women and children in our nation, home was not a sanctuary. In those very early days, we very quickly met with the women’s organisations, provided additional funding for them to deliver their services, and got early intelligence on other ways that we could support that work.
The Labour amendment refers to pharmacies and how we could use code words and so on, and Rhoda Grant, Alison Johnstone and a number of others spoke about that. I am pleased to say that we have advanced work on both those areas. This morning, I chaired an event attended by the Home Office, Boots, Community Pharmacy Scotland and a number of other stakeholders to talk about it. Pharmacies across the UK have been providing safe spaces. For example, Boots told us this morning that it has 4,171 pharmacies taking part in the safe spaces project and that it expects another 800 to be doing so by the end of this year, which would add up to around 5,000 in total. It is rolling out training to all its staff, so that they understand how to accommodate somebody who comes in to ask for a safe space, and how to respond with both confidence and competence. Ten per cent of those safe spaces are in Scotland, so we are punching a wee bit above our weight. We obviously want to do much more and, this morning, Boots committed to working with us on that.
We considered the issue of a code word early in the pandemic, because we had heard about some of the work that had been done around it, which included the work that had been done in France. We had considered a Scottish-specific code word, but after our conversations with our colleagues across the other three nations and taking into account the work that the Home Office was doing on the issue, we decided to go with a four-nations approach. The Home Office has co-ordinated the “Ask for ANI” code word scheme—ANI stands for action needed immediately.
That immediate response project will run alongside the projects on safe spaces that Boots and other independent pharmacies run. If somebody comes in and asks for ANI, that person needs support immediately, so the police will be called and the person will be taken into a safe space. We will produce a report after today’s event and I will ensure that members get copies of it to understand how that work will be rolled out, because it is incredibly important.
Boots and independent pharmacies gave us a few stories today, in which there were examples of how to use a safe space to make a call: a young woman came into the pharmacy who could not use her home phone or devices at home because he was always there; she pretended that she was picking up a prescription and was able to get into the pharmacy and the safe space to phone for help. That is a practical way in which that scheme works, and the fact that that event happened locally shows that this incredibly important work is being done.
Members have raised so many other points. Beatrice Wishart and Rona Mackay raised the issue of protection orders, which we are obviously progressing really well.