Cowboy pharmacy locum agencies

Channel 4 and five regularly seem to have programmes about cowboy builders fleecing customers with exorbitant fees and shoddy workmanship. Unfortunately we have a few cowboy operators masquerading as locum agencies in pharmacy.

At last count their were about 70 so called agencies. The range from the huge multinational organisations to the one man band but only about 10-15 could be classed as proper agencies. One particular operator caused major problems across the UK especially around the fallow year in 2000. Last minute cancellations, double bookings and an amazing number of car break-downs were trademarks of this organisations. I won’t name them but for those of you who aware around then, it isn’t difficult to guess who it might be.

Unfortunately some of the same practices seem to be creeping back with a number of “new” agencies. What they do is they tell the pharmacy operator that they have a locum to cover their gap. They also tell their locum that they have work but they don’t confirm to either the names of the locum or the branches. So Saturday comes around, the pharmacy operator think they have a locum to cover their Sunday opening branch but no-one has been asked to fill the gap. The agency are frantically trying to find a locum to fill it because, in reality, they never had anyone. In most cases none of this is confirmed in writing – easy to blame the pharmacy operator that way.

The result of this way of operating are:

1. Pharmacies not opening because the agency can’t actually find a locum
2. Locums not having any work because they have been told that the agency has gaps but not told where – the usual excuse is a last minute cancellation by the pharmacy!
3. Double, treble or quadruple bookings – the agency frantically chase round for locums and book with more than one.
4. Most importantly patients are left without medication because the pharmacy can’t open.

In my view this has never been taken seriously enough by the profession. The people operating this cowboy operations are usually RPSGB registered pharmacists. So why don’t the authorities take action against them when their unprofessional ism causes severe problems for pharmacies and can stop patients obtaining their medication?

Do we need a system of licensing agencies? Probably, but this would fly in the face of government policy which doesn’t require employment agencies to be licensed in any sector.

So how do you sort the wheat from the chaff as a locum pharmacist:

1. Talk to experienced locums – they will know the best agecnies to work for.
2. Do your homework on the agencies and find out: Are the registered with the REC – The recruitment sectors professional body, (www.rec.uk.com) are they an approved agency with any of the larger multiples (The multiples go through a due diligence process to check agencies before approving them), do the agency have ISO 9001accreditation and how many people work for the agencies – one man (or women) bands are best avoided.
3. Try a few – give them your free dates and see if they can fill them and how they operate. They should always confirm bookings in writing so you have an audit trail in case things go wrong. With the best system in the world things still go wrong but to ensure that it’s not you that double books, always keep written confirmation.  Pharmacy is a proud profession and rightly so but if you let the cowboys operate unchecked the whole profession can be brought into disrepute.

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Tags: Cowboy, locum agency, rpsgb

Category: Default, Locum Jobs, Pharmacy News