Switching from the Community to GP Pharmacist?

Also the reason for the so called shortage :

Their organisational culture and management practices
The reduction in purchasing power of pharmacist salaries over recent years
The staffing levels they allocate to their pharmacies; are there sufficient number of competent support staff to safely operate the branch and provide all services?
The level of investment and maintenance in their premises, what is the physical environment pharmacists are expected to work within?
What impact does stress and lack of breaks in the pharmacist’s day have on their wellbeing?
Finally, those pharmacy companies struggling most to recruit pharmacists should ask themselves why other employers seem to be able to recruit enough pharmacists to keep their pharmacies open?

I laugh every time I see anything about pharmacist shortages when the figures from the PDA prove there simply is NOT a shortage, there is a concerted effort now by the under 35s, realising they are on a very tilting Titanic of a profession, jumping overboard and swimming to a lifeboat. That being a totally new job/profession/degree/career.

I know one guy, his Dad is a builder, got him on plumbing and electrics courses, bit of plastering and decorating training, and he now buys up cheap houses at auctions to do-up, or provides the other services. He has left the register at age 35. And there is a huge stampede behind him, millennials realising they were mis-sold a glossy, action packed clinical future from a university, providing 'services', etc which turned out to be churning out 400 items a day with one and a half dispensers, no counter staff, targets galore, ordering for patients, phoning surgeries for patients, delivering on their way home to patients ( with the obligatory 3 cars on the drive, but absolutely no-one was free to pop in before 630pm! ). etc, etc, etc. Those qualified, or even pre-reg will know the song now, same old, same old for the last decade or so, at least. Gordon Brown wasn't interested in pharmacists.....he brought in Category M to ruin our generic drug buying profits, Cameron/May brought in a funding cut, and a fixed 5 year funding deal hoping the weak would die off.....and they are. you know it's bad when Lloyds sells or closes TEN per cent of its portfolio of stores! (But there are too many pharmacies, does one little High street need 2 Boots, a Lloyds, an independent, and 2 one-hundred hour pharmacies? No!)

I dread to think, with the demise of the High street, and the big switch to on-line and digital everything since the 'Rona' what the state of community pharmacy will look like in ten years' time?
Thankfully, (for me) I will retire that year.




Don't forget this article from the summer:

"If you’ve been following pharmacy social media, it will have you believing in the idea that there’s a massive shortage of pharmacists so we need to import, we need remote supervision and we must have apprentices otherwise the industry will fall apart! So, let’s take a deeper look and by that I mean let’s just scratch the surface because it’s not really that deep and the numbers and overwhelming evidence is clear – it’s nothing but a myth.

Imagine how bad you have to be as an employer when you offer double if not triple the normal hourly rate and still no one wants to work for you. Does that mean there is a pharmacist shortage? If you have spent over a decade stripping your branches to bare bone staff, pay freeze, incessant demands to hit commercial targets and have been overworking your staff to the ground then is it possible that this is the reason why no pharmacist is willing to work for you? Is it really a surprise when pharmacists leave in their droves after years of being downtrodden and then the company gets a bad reputation? This now means that no one wants to come and work for you. Should you jump to the wrong conclusion and automatically think “hmm there must be a shortage otherwise why can’t I find a locum?” Should we just import more pharmacists? If you insist that locums should work for you for an hourly rate that is just a few pennies more than the hourly rate from twenty years ago, is it any wonder why nobody considers working for that? Further, if you insist on and instill a culture that anyone who demands a fairer hourly rate is simply profiteering and should be reported to the GPhC do you not think that locum pharmacists will avoid you like the plague?

Due to this behaviour, locums no longer want to work for you and you then think it’s because there’s a shortage so the solution is to pursue an apprenticeship route into the profession, with apprenticeship salaries and an almost Victorian workhouse ethic. If you seriously believe any of those reasons above is a valid reason to bring in remote supervision, apprentices, or to put pharmacists on the shortage list then I have this amazing bridge in London I’m looking to sell. Just send me your card details first!

There are around sixty thousand pharmacists currently on the register, give or take a few thousand. Of those around seventy percent work in community. There are around 11,826 (2020 figures) pharmacies in the UK. So a quick calculation should tell you there are around 42,000 pharmacists working in community which is almost 4 pharmacists per pharmacy. Ahhhh, I hear the cynics cry, what about all those pharmacists working in PCNs? Well, what about them? The uptake into PCNs has not been that great and GP practice pharmacists’ numbers aren’t as high as you’d expect either.

So where have all the pharmacists gone you ask? Why are so many pharmacies closing you ask? I bet they’re all working in vaccination centres for hundreds of pounds an hour! Well, that would be a no. You see the PCNs haven’t taken on as many pharmacists because it takes time to train up a pharmacist to do everything they would want a pharmacist to do (another discussion for another day). Same story with the GP surgeries. It takes time to train up a pharmacist to do a lot of the work a GP does. As for the vaccination centre jobs, it still doesn’t add up to explain the alleged shortage of pharmacists stories we hear from all corners of the sector (by that I mean mainly the big boys with deep pockets and an interest in keeping salaries low).

The real issue here, and it has been for a long time, is the poor treatment of pharmacists. This didn’t start yesterday, last month or last year. It started decades ago when the large multiples decided the best way to deal with an upcoming funding cut would be to use a sledgehammer to crack a nut and cut staff wages and numbers. Rather than innovation, we took the lazy approach. Had we chosen to innovate, invest in our staff and develop new services today we would have been in a much better situation professionally and financially. Our profession doesn’t need an apprenticeship route. What we need are independent thinkers not people who will be brainwashed for years on minimum salary and overworked so they can bleed blue, green or whatever colour they’re told to bleed. We don’t need to import pharmacists so they can work here on practically minimum wage and burn out.

I’ve spoken to hundreds of pharmacists over the last few years who have come to UK and were promised the dream of amazing things by these companies who sold them that dream. When our colleagues took up the offer of the dream the reality was a dream turned into a nightmare. They were faced with extremely busy pharmacies, understaffing, faced racism and lack of support. They don’t complain because they’re here on a T2 visa so most will just remain silent until they burn out or get the chance to escape.

What we lack is real leadership. We have a professional body that most pharmacists don’t even take seriously. If you ask most pharmacists about what the RPS does, their answer is usually “what do they do?”. We have too many organisations claiming to speak for their own small sub-section of the sector. What we need is a unifying organisation. Leadership that everyone can look up to. One that is willing to speak up even to the most deep-pocketed companies without flinching. One that focuses on the real issues instead of denying they even exist.

So, about that shortage of pharmacists. What shortage? "





By Tohidul Islam, Chief Exec of the Pharmacist Cooperative and Locum

This article first appeared on the Pharmacist Cooperative website



There is NO shortage of community pharmacists!!!
There IS a shortage of CPs who don't want to work for 9 or 10 hours a day for £20 an hour, probably the same as they were earning a decade ago, so in effect, assuming 2.5% inflation a year, a 25% pay cut, get shouted at by the general public who are getting increasingly demanding, rude and aggressive, be given impossible 'service' targets by non-pharmacist managers who last year were managing a mobile phone shop, or suchlike and have no idea about pharmacy, stand up all day, hardly getting time to sit down for 15 mins to eat a sandwich, and go home tired, stressed, exhausted, depressed even, only to have to come back the next day to go through this pharmaceutical 'Groundhog Day' nightmare all over again. There is your shortage, @ pretty new blond ladyBoss from Lloyds! Not because those nasty GPs and PCNs have pinched 3000 pharmacists, and mostly from hospitals.

People are scrambling for the exits, and I don't even mean off to GPLand, I mean something else entirely. Leaving the profession, lock, stock and barrel! Or they become a Mom, and maybe work just one day a week as a locum.

I have NO idea how 'they' managed to convince the government there is a shortage when there are more pharmacists on the register than ever before, AND, over the next 1 to 2 years we will hit 70,000 pharmacists. So.....there you go, No shortage, certainly not of the one 'they' would have you believe.
Perhaps provide a counter staff member, and an extra fiver on the hourly rate, and you might suddenly find one of those rare, in hiding, pharmacist creatures!! @ Blond Boss Lloyds Lady!

I turned 30 recently and couldn't agree more. Job prospects for those under 35 is appalling for those who haven't done their prereg in hospital or gp/pcn and the only decent money in community is emergency locum work... Which you have 100-200 people trying to get at the same time.

Hospital isn't a pretty picture from personal experience unless you are in a teaching hospital / foundation trust. Those thinking of going outpatients as a means of getting experience in hospital / to springboard - forget about it. Outpatients is essentially the worst aspects of community condensed into a somehow worse environment and most hospital pharmacy staff will not interact with you unless they are forced to work in outpatients. And it pays less than community

Ha great post. Those wigged up superintendents on the C&D have really shown their true colours trying to fob off their shortcomings by a 'pharmacist shortage'.

A friend of mine who became a manager of a local big multiple branch a year ago has given up his role to return to locuming. Why? The local population it serves is horrendous and unruly, the place is understaffed and undertrained, he was only a manager in name and had no impact on staff management. There were multiple weekends he would call me if I could cover a shift at his branch or where he was locuming because the locum who was meant to be at his branch didn't turn up! Not once, this happened three times he asked me. He had no control on organising staff as it was all done centrally and left him feeling frustrated, he would have to deal with the fallout come Monday. And to do this all on a pittance wage? I can see why you'd want to leave and earn significantly more with today's rates and choose better off independents with less stress. I see the same role for his branch now being advertised on the C&D for 'up to £56,000 per annum', you well know they won't start you at that top bracket nor is there mention about progression from there after. Well hey, at least you get a staff discount!?

One of my classmates in my independent prescribing course has dropped out of pharmacy completely and started her own online confectionery business. Imagine spending all those years in university, post grad experience and doing further qualifications to just throw in the towel because the dream you were sold didn't shape up to what it was meant to be.

I say all the power to the pharmacists making their stand and saying enough is enough from the large multiples.

I've been watching some UK pharmacists on youtube talk about their experience, oddly enough you can find people blog about just about any subject nowadays.

One of them started in hospital and discussed his starting pay as £26k a year. Imagine spending 4+1 years of studying the degree to be enticed by a 26k wage. What kind of mickey mouse salaries are these?

Thanks
I think it also doesn't help at all, especially in front of government ministers and civil servants, who are planning the future course of the profession, for us to be led by basically a 20something girl, who in the week is actually a trainee solicitor!! This is absolute madness. It is like the Law society being run by a dentist! (I should state I have no personal malice intended against Ms Govind, I would say the same of anyone in this weird position.)
However, I really cannot stand the arrogance this person shows and the media she puts out, she cannot see she is a total hypocrite championing a profession she seems destined to leave! Talking about Covid and roundtable meetings with GP leaders, yet where will she be? In her law offices during the week? Maybe locuming on a weekend using pharmacy as a bit of a hobby and entity to enhance her profile? Are we looking at a run for parliament in 2024/2028?!
Do any other pharmacists find the RPS leadership set-up, or rather lack of it, rather strange too?
Anne Lewis and other late pharmacists of great stature, like Gordon Appelbe must be turning in their graves to see what has become of what was once a decent, respected profession. Now basically ruined by the over-expansion of degree courses and the stampede of the multiples, ruining independent pharmacy.

I also find it strange, and annoying that one cannot leave comments on Chemist and Druggist articles anymore and wonder if the RPS has had any push on this, due to all their bad publicity of being basically run by a solicitor and a university professor, and these 2 people, are supposed to be leading our profession?! It's basically a joke.

I left the RPS this time last year, The PJ going totally online was the last straw. And it looked like Covid used as an excuse to digitise the MEP from now on too, so with nothing to actually physically 'read', I cancelled the DD. I think many pharmacists, especially young ones, who will start to feel the squeeze with higher energy bills and inflation, may be looking for things to cut and the RPS membership starts to look like a quick and easy £200 saving per year, without really missing out on much, when you have CPPE and PharmacyMagazine providing free training.

Dont forget vaccine centres paying £30/hour

Thanks
I think it also doesn't help at all, especially in front of government ministers and civil servants, who are planning the future course of the profession, for us to be led by basically a 20something girl, who in the week is actually a trainee solicitor!! This is absolute madness. It is like the Law society being run by a dentist! (I should state I have no personal malice intended against Ms Govind, I would say the same of anyone in this weird position.)
However, I really cannot stand the arrogance this person shows and the media she puts out, she cannot see she is a total hypocrite championing a profession she seems destined to leave! Talking about Covid and roundtable meetings with GP leaders, yet where will she be? In her law offices during the week? Maybe locuming on a weekend using pharmacy as a bit of a hobby and entity to enhance her profile? Are we looking at a run for parliament in 2024/2028?!
Do any other pharmacists find the RPS leadership set-up, or rather lack of it, rather strange too?
Anne Lewis and other late pharmacists of great stature, like Gordon Appelbe must be turning in their graves to see what has become of what was once a decent, respected profession. Now basically ruined by the over-expansion of degree courses and the stampede of the multiples, ruining independent pharmacy.

I also find it strange, and annoying that one cannot leave comments on Chemist and Druggist articles anymore and wonder if the RPS has had any push on this, due to all their bad publicity of being basically run by a solicitor and a university professor, and these 2 people, are supposed to be leading our profession?! It's basically a joke.

I left the RPS this time last year, The PJ going totally online was the last straw. And it looked like Covid used as an excuse to digitise the MEP from now on too, so with nothing to actually physically 'read', I cancelled the DD. I think many pharmacists, especially young ones, who will start to feel the squeeze with higher energy bills and inflation, may be looking for things to cut and the RPS membership starts to look like a quick and easy £200 saving per year, without really missing out on much, when you have CPPE and PharmacyMagazine providing free training.

It's official!!!

£50/hour is the standard locum CP rate for the NE folks. I'm booked as a locum CP all the way to March 2022 working 3 days a week. My regular locum spot is just 5 mins drive from my house, no more driving for miles for me. Long may it continue.

Happy New Year folks. Aim to make this year a year of investing your locum CP earnings.

£50/hr sounds wonderful, but the multiples have managed to convince the government that there is a shortage of pharmacists, when we all know there isn't. So how long will those rates last.....?

Those Visas will start getting dished out this year, so enjoy it while you can, before someone from abroad replaces you on £19/hr. It's all supply and demand, and economics, and the multiples are going to do what they did 20 yrs ago, flood the market with foreign pharmacists.
I think by 2030, we will see massive hub and spoke and a drop in pharmacies to around 9000, so a 25% drop from now, meaning less places to work and less pharmacists to clinically check in massive 'Amazon-style' prescription factories.

The universities have also helped push wages down by doubling the number of schools of pharmacy from 15 to 30 over the last couple of decades too.
Although I predict that around half a dozen of the worst performing ones will close by 2030, as there will be pharmacist unemployment, as we pass 70,000 pharmacists on the register over the next couple of years.

Sorry to p!ss on your parade, but you don't really think the multiples are going to allow £50/hr long-term do you?!?

Didnt sussex close their pharmacy school down for a bit within a couple of years of opening. Also uni of beds iirc started a pharmacy school / were about to start a pharmacy school pre pandemic but it isnt in existence anymore

£50/hr sounds wonderful, but the multiples have managed to convince the government that there is a shortage of pharmacists, when we all know there isn't. So how long will those rates last.....?

Those Visas will start getting dished out this year, so enjoy it while you can, before someone from abroad replaces you on £19/hr. It's all supply and demand, and economics, and the multiples are going to do what they did 20 yrs ago, flood the market with foreign pharmacists.
I think by 2030, we will see massive hub and spoke and a drop in pharmacies to around 9000, so a 25% drop from now, meaning less places to work and less pharmacists to clinically check in massive 'Amazon-style' prescription factories.

The universities have also helped push wages down by doubling the number of schools of pharmacy from 15 to 30 over the last couple of decades too.
Although I predict that around half a dozen of the worst performing ones will close by 2030, as there will be pharmacist unemployment, as we pass 70,000 pharmacists on the register over the next couple of years.

Sorry to p!ss on your parade, but you don't really think the multiples are going to allow £50/hr long-term do you?!?

By 2030, I aim to be a retired pharmacist. My investments should start yielding fruit by then, hopefully.

Any crypto?

I turned 30 recently and couldn't agree more. Job prospects for those under 35 is appalling for those who haven't done their prereg in hospital or gp/pcn and the only decent money in community is emergency locum work... Which you have 100-200 people trying to get at the same time.
Hospital isn't a pretty picture from personal experience unless you are in a teaching hospital / foundation trust. Those thinking of going outpatients as a means of getting experience in hospital / to springboard - forget about it. Outpatients is essentially the worst aspects of community condensed into a somehow worse environment and most hospital pharmacy staff will not interact with you unless they are forced to work in outpatients. And it pays less than community

If you're willing to undergo IP training, the CPPE primary care pathway and more CPD than all your years combined as a CP then sure, making the transition to GP is straightforward. Starting salaries are £45-£50k and rise with experience and qualifications. I hear you can earn up to £80k and drive Land Rovers working in CP though, not sure if it's worth the jump.

not true, I recently turned 29, qualified almost 3 years ago, earn £50k and work in a lovely PCN including workign from home days. I got a PCN pharmacist role straight out of pre-reg, they even told me they hired me above a community pharmacist who had been qualified for 10 years because i was more knowledgeable. i also did my preg reg split hospital and GP so no offence i had more knwoledge than a community pharmacist working there for 10 years. If you want something, go for it!!! Could i be earning 70k in community pharmacy, sure but thats a prison sentence, my peace of mind is worth more than that.

Working in community pharmacy is a prison sentence. I have never worked there and never will. I would rather earn £50k in primary care, general practice, maintain my clinical knowledge and work from home some days for peace of mind