Pharmacy leaders have urged the government to stop treating pharmacists more harshly than other healthcare professionals in response to the government-commissioned Berwick review, which warns against criminalising genuine professional mistakes.

Pharmacists broadly welcomed recommendations from the Berwick review, published on Tuesday (August 6), which considered what the NHS could learn from the failings of Mid-Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. But they stressed that the government must decriminalise genuine dispensing errors to put an end to "double standards" in the NHS.

The review, led by patient safety expert Don Berwick, suggests introducing criminal sanctions for NHS workers who act recklessly or wilfully neglect patients. But it stressed that these sanctions should be "extremely rare" and should not be used for unintended errors.

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	Professor Berwick, a former health advisor to President Obama, also emphasised that errors were not misconduct and did not warrant punishment. He called on the NHS to adopt a culture of learning to encourage high patient safety standards.

In January, the government set up a programme board to look at decriminalising dispensing errors, which aims to complete its work by the end of next year. But the Independent Pharmacy Federation (IPF) said the profession must "fight harder" to change the law.

IPF chief executive Claire Ward said existing legislation discriminated against pharmacists. "As part of the overhaul of responsibilities and sanctions across the NHS, we need to make sure that pharmacy is brought into line," she told C+D.

Royal Pharmaceutical Society English Pharmacy Board member and contractor Sid Dajani echoed concerns that pharmacists were treated unfairly and said the threat of prosecution would have been removed "a long time ago" if it affected doctors or nurses.

Numark managing director John D'Arcy said the law was hampering pharmacists' ability to learn from their mistakes and instead encouraged "a culture of defensive practice and stifled innovation".

Experts differed on whether the recommendations would strengthen the case for decriminalising dispensing errors. Mr D'Arcy and Pharmacy Voice said the report should aid efforts to stop penalising genuine mistakes.

"It is good to see Don Berwick's group stressing that any new legislation should avoid criminalising unintended errors, which is exactly where we want the rebalancing programme work led by Ken Jarrold to end up," Pharmacy Voice chief executive Rob Darracott told C+D.

But JMW Solicitors partner Andrea James said the plans to create new criminal sanctions for healthcare professionals could jeopardise the momentum to decriminalise dispensing errors.

In an exclusive interview with C+D last week, pharmacy minister Earl Howe warned that pharmacists could not expect "overnight changes" to the law.

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