Pharmacy a dying profession

I'm pretty sure they could these days. Some prescriptions have a barcode on them, which a lot of the time let's you copy information onto labels without manually putting them.

You could essentially link the barcode to what's written on the prescription, this can generate labels. Also you can have a feature in which doses are checked on the BNF for safety and if there is a query, the prescription is rejected and the patient takes it back to the doctor.

Another robot can pick the drugs, which are barcoded as well and attach the labels to the drugs (the labels can also be barcoded, so there is never an error).

Then another robot reads out the patients name and matches a picture of what they have on the NHS database to them and gives it out.

I agree with OP. I would not recommend a career in community pharmacy. You will stand up for 9 hours a day, not get a lunch break, get loads of abuse off the general public, get hassle from senior management about targets for useless services, get stressed to the MAX because there is so much to do and no staff and not enough time to do it in AND then get crap money at the end of the day too. The way pharmacy is presented at Uni and the way it is in the real world of community pharmacy is TOTALLY different.
If you are thinking of doing this, OP is right, you MUST do work experience.
From next month there are CUTS to the money paid to pharmacies by the Govt. and this will probably push wages down even more. And, they want to close anywhere between 1000 and 3000 pharmacies, so where is everyone going to work?????
Even the top Unis are in clearing now for pharmacy, like Nottingham etc, they are desperate to fill all their places to get that 9k off of you. And like he says to earn upto about 38k a yr, and that will take you years to get there.
My company starts new pharmacists on 25k a yr. I am looking to leave community pharmacy. Lots of people I know who are newly qualified are too. Other posters are right. Treat it like a science degree and there are lots of things you can do. One guy went to work for Barclays Bank. (so why not join at age 18 and work your way up, and not end up in 36k fees debt??)
Good luck everyone.

Is this also the case for hospital pharmacy? I plan on studying pharmacy in order to do medicine postgrad. Is that a viable option (as it is theoretically the ideal course for preparing for medicine) or is it better to choose another degree?

Is this also the case for hospital pharmacy? I plan on studying pharmacy in order to do medicine postgrad. Is that a viable option (as it is theoretically the ideal course for preparing for medicine) or is it better to choose another degree?

The thing is, if we take a time machine and go back 10-15 years, those 2 professions were some of the best in the UK. Pay was excellent, workload was reasonable. Pharmacists could earn £30-£40 an hour locuming easily. Now a locum at my place gets £19 an hour and there are talks to drive it down to £17 an hour.

Think from 2003 to now, how much inflation we have had. Wages have gone down, while cost of living has gone up. A bottle of coke is now £1.60, when it was 70p on average in 2003.

An older colleague of mine says he was on £20 an hr in 2005. That was 11 years ago !!!! Think about this 6th formers!!!!!

Yeah our regular pharmacists get £20 an hour roughly now, locums on £19 an hour (except sundays £22).

Crazy that we have had price increases in goods over 11 years, but wages haven't moved (if not, gone down).

The number of pharmacy graduates ready to enter the job market is more than the number of jobs at present. I think universities should limit the number of students intake to ensure the stability of jobs for future.

Yeah, its nearly 3000 grads a year isn't is who do the exam ?
Do you know roughly how many jobs there are vacant every year?

There might be a mass exodus of the oldies soon though, there was an article in the PJ about a new EU law that means from 2019, we are going to have to scan the bar code on EVERY single box of tabs to make sure its not a fake!!!!
Where have we got the time or staff to do that???!!
If that doesn't make you wanna leave, then I don't know what will!
We use like hundreds n hundreds of boxes a day!
I think its called the EU fake meds directive or something like that. FMD

I don't think the few hours of research is enough. I'm a pharmacy dispenser part time and full time PhD student (in economics/finance). I've seen the ******** in the profession, I'm lucky I only do a day a week there.

You only realise how **** it is, once you do a few weeks there. Therefore WORK EXPERIENCE is the key. So you can see it for yourself.

Absolutely loved my work experience ..?