Robbery prevention: Pharmacies in Ontario must display signs about time-delayed safes

Community pharmacies in Ontario must now display signs informing the public that narcotics are kept in a time-delayed safe. These safes only open after a pre-set period of time after the combination is entered.The signage is a new requirement from the Ontario College of Pharmacists to help deter robberies. In March, the college’s board of directors approved the policy that pharmacies must use a time-delayed safe when storing narcotics. The change meant that all community pharmacies needed to “take immediate steps” to get a time-delayed safe. The safe must be set with a time-delay of at least five minutes.The signs must be posted at each public entrance and in the dispensary. Pharmacies must only use the college-approved signs to support a consistent approach in all Ontario pharmacies, the college’s website states. The signs can be downloaded from the college website, but pharmacies must pay for the printing the sign.Read: Pharmacy robberies drop in Alberta after time-delayed safes are made mandatory“Robberies can have a serious impact on the physical and mental well-being of pharmacy staff and patients and can lead to reduced access to care for patients whose pharmacies have been directly affected,” said James Morrison, chair of the board of the Ontario College of Pharmacists in a press release. “And while no single measure can completely prevent robberies, our board felt that this mandate, including the required use of prominent signage, was an important deterrence worth implementing in Ontario given the success of similar measures in other provinces.” The College of Pharmacists of British Columbia has required the use of time-delayed safes for narcotics since 2015. An examination of the by-law change was published in 2019. It showed that pharmacy robberies decreased and recommended time-delayed safes be used in other jurisdictions. Alberta College of Pharmacy has required time-delayed safes for narcotics since 2022 and other colleges are set to move towards the requirement.The decision to mandate time-delayed safes was supported by the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police and the Ontario Pharmacists Association.A list of frequently asked questions about the required signage is available on the college’s website, as well as advice on how to integrate a time-delayed safe into your pharmacy’s workflow.Read: ‘It can get really intense’: Robbery simulations now part of pharm assistant training at Ontario college

Robbery prevention: Pharmacies in Ontario must display signs about time-delayed safes

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