I’m not claiming that it will rival the Times, Guardian or Telegraph but I’m pleased to announce the launch of the Shaun Hockey Daily – a daily emailed newspaper with content from people I find interesting in the worlds of pharmacy, healthcare, www, sport and celebrity.
To visit the Shaun Hockey Daily click on the link below:
My hope for 2011 is that it will become remembered as the year our profession started focusing on the individual pharmacist again. Too much time in recent years has been spent focusing on pharmacies, (Control of entry regulations) and the profession of pharmacy ( split of the representative and regulatory function of RPSGB)
During this time we have lost focus on the pharmacists who are working their fingers to the bone dispensing ever increasing numbers of prescriptions without the corresponding increase in reward, either professionally or financially.
So Royal Pharmaceutical Society , make 2011 the year you make a difference for the individual pharmacists who pay their membership fees in the hope that they receive representation to make their working lives more rewarding, or you may find that the number of renewals come March 1st will come as a bit of a shock!
I am really chuffed that I have been asked to be a guest blogger on the C+D website starting in the New Year. If you have any topics you would like me to cover please let me know by:
email shaun@pluk.co.uk
Twitter http://www.twitter.com/shaun_at_pluk
Facebook www.facebook.com/facepluk
When I first became a pharmacist 17 years ago, a wise old pharmacist told me that the most important person in the shop is the pharmacy technician. When I became a manager for Boots sometime later, a wise old area manager that the most important person in the shop was not the shop supervisor but the pharmacy technician and this went on and on throughout my career in community pharmacy.
Why is it then that pharmacy technicians in the community get paid so poorly, especially when you compare them to NHS colleagues with similar qualifications? My personal belief is that pharmacy technicians are exploited in community pharmacy and the fact that a very high percentage of technicians are women is the main reason. We have found in cases where a particularly high percentage of employees are women that the reward associated with the job is much lower than where there is a mix of men and women performing a role. A very good example of this can be found in local government where councils are having to pay over £500 million in back pay to women on low pay http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=4339139
In the NHS, most pharmacy technicians are part of a union and the union negotiate with the NHS on their members behalf. In addition the NHS went through the Agenda for Change programme which looked at each role are banded in with comparable jobs in other professions. To illustrate a normal band for a pharmacy technician in the NHS would be 5 or 6 and the salary range for these bands would be £20,202 to £32,662 with some pharmacy technician earning considerably more than that as they take on management roles.
So are pharmacy technicians the most undervalued resource? No, they are not undervalued but they are definitely the most under-rewarded.
Some of you may know that in addition to running PL-UK I also locum 1-2 days a week, usually in one of Her Majesty’s Prisons. In prison service pharmacy you have access to patients medical records and can therefore fully support other members of the healthcare team and give patients effective advice.
It came as a shock then when on Wednesday, I volunteered to help out in a busy community pharmacy whose pharmacy manager was ill. The pharmacy is very busy dispensing around 10,000 items a month with lots of walk in business. To suddenly not have access to patients records felt like someone had cut off my right arm. All questions about dosages and queries on prescribing had to be made via the doctors receptionist on one occasion via a patients mother who called her daughter to confirm a dose change! What century are we living in in community pharmacy? Pharmacists will never realise their full clinical potential until they have access to patients records. In addition, the NHS will never benefit from the savings pharmacists could generate without this access.
Doctors and nurses in the NHS and prison service are happy for pharmacists to have access to this information as they see them as fellow clinicians. So what’s the problem for community pharmacy?
It’s quite clear that GP’s don’t community pharmacists in the same way as their secondary care colleagues and I fear the continued expansion of the multiples means they never will. I’m pretty sure that if the pharmacy market in the UK had remained dominated by independent contractors we would have had patient record access by now.
Whether we like it or not, and this is not meant to be disrespectful to individual pharmacists, doctors will never agree to allow access to confidential medical information to large, as they see it, commercial organisations like the big supermarkets. Traditionally pharmacy chains, maybe, but the thought of a persons medical history being stored on loyalty card looms large in the thoughts of medics.
However they may be a way around this that would allow patients to benefit from better pharmaceutical care and pharmacists to support patients and other clinicians much more effectively – an NHS contract for pharmacists.
Just think of it, the NHS could benefit from the business expertise of the multiples and the pharmacist would have complete professional freedom without worrying about commercial priorities or making this Christmas the best Christmas ever! Oh, I can still hear it now from my Boots days!
So in this time of unprecedented change for the NHS, we need our leaders to start thinking outside the box. I know that the PDA are pushing for individual contracts for pharmacists, maybe not in quite the style I envisage, but it’s a start.
What are your thoughts?
Shaun
Agency Workers Regulations – how does it effect me?
The simple answer is it doesn’t. …. in most cases. For more expert guidance than I can supply as a pharmacist rather than a legal bod please click on the link below. http://www.pcg.org.uk/cms/documents/01109%20PCG%20A4%2020PP%20BROCHURE%20SINGLE%20PAGES.pdf
One in a lifetime opportunity – pharmacist required in Tonga
We have been approached by a not for profit pharmacy in the Kingdom of Tonga asking us to recruit a pharmacist to work at one of the health centres in the Kingdom. This opportunity will definately not come up again for if you fancy a complete change of scene and an opportunity to live on [...]
Just a quick post to remind all pharmacist that they need to renew their GPhC registration by the 31st October. So you still have a month to pay but if you are anything like me, if you don’t do it now, there’s a chance you’ll forget!
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