ANGRY people are shouting and swearing at hardworking pharmacy staff after being told there are no lateral flow tests in stock.

People are taking out their frustrations at being unable to get hold of lateral flow tests by abusing staff at Kitsons Pharmacy in Broad Street.

There has been a national shortage of the tests and the issue is compounded by people thinking they have reserved tests waiting for them.

However, while Kitsons is signed up to Pharmacy Collect the free LFD tests are only handed out if there is stock available.

Director's assistant Jivan Sohal said: "It's really unfortunate but in a pandemic staff are having abuse towards them from people shouting and swearing across the whole pharmacy.

"We're a small premises and have queues that go out of through the door and people will shout straight through.

"Staff have been working really hard all through the pandemic and they do not deserve it."

The pharmacy saw a dramatic increase in demand after Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged people to get tested before meeting with groups of people.

Pharmacy Collects gives people a 16-digit code online for them to pick up a LFT in a pharmacy.

Mr Jivan said: "We're one of the biggest collection points in Worcester and just before Christmas we began really struggling to get stock.

"We are seeing huge volumes of people who want lateral flow tests at the moment - we're getting lots of phone calls and people coming into the pharmacy.

"At the moment we are not receiving any or very few tests that they only last five minutes.

"But people are given the code and think it means there is a test reserved for them but that isn't the case unfortunately.

"We're seeing a lot of anger and abuse to staff at the counter and over the telephone.

"At the start of the pandemic people were really grateful pharmacies were still open but that's changed really from the summer onwards.

"There seems to be more irritability and people get annoyed quickly then some become abusive."

A UKHSA spokesperson said: “The UK’s testing programme is the biggest in Europe with over 400 million tests carried out since the start of the pandemic.

"We are delivering record numbers of lateral flow tests to pharmacies across the country, with nearly 8 million test kits being made available to pharmacies this week (January 3 onwards) alone.

"We have made 100,000 more PCR booking slots available per day since mid-December and we are continuing to rapidly expand capacity – with over half a million tests carried out on December 23 alone and delivery capacity doubled to up to 900,000 PCR and LFD test kits a day.

"If you have not been able to get the test you need from gov.uk, please keep checking every few hours as more PCR and LFD tests become available every day.”