From Mrs A. Morant, MRPharmS
SIR,-I am somewhat puzzled by the letter from Mr Blake and the response from Mr Hulme on behalf of Moss Pharmacy (PJ, August 19, p264).
Mr Hulme appears unable to distinguish between locums and relief pharmacists/managers. While it is, as he says, normal for staff to pay their travel costs from home to their normal place of work, the situation is entirely different for self-employed locums who have to be prepared to (and do) travel to a whole range of different shops - sometimes at quite short notice - to work for a variety of employers. Unlike many of those employed within large organisations, locums are aware of today's real costs.
Even though the locum should not expect "mileage" to be a source of income, equally well he or she should not be expected to subsidise any employer. After all the depreciation, tax and insurance, servicing and the ever-rising price of petrol must surely have pushed the costs of running a car well above the 25p per mile that Mr Hulme says Moss currently pays and which he "believes is actually better than a number of other similar employers of locum pharmacists". (This, by the way, is not my experience of another large company.)
This is, essentially, a separate issue from the fees charged by a self-employed locum who must make provision for National Insurance, sickness insurance and pension/life insurance, etc, that would normally form part of an employee's package as well as the overheads of running an albeit very small business. In fact, many managers conveniently overlook these factors and seem to equate locum gross fees with the net salary of an employee pharmacist.
Although a good locum will be in very heavy demand during holiday season, the majority will not find themselves fully booked for the remainder of the year. This is an important issue as in the interest of community pharmacy as a whole and not just for the individual locums, there is a need for locums to earn a satisfactory, professional wage if the "pool" of locums is not to become depleted.
This could well be a problem as there will be a shortage of preregistration trainees and then new managers as a result of the new four-year pharmacy degree course.
Mr Blake, as a locum pharmacist, is offering his services, in this case via an agency. Presumably, fees, hours and other details and expenses were discussed prior to his accepting the offer of employment with Moss. In this context, if not otherwise plainly stated and agreed, surely the door-to-door distance would be the relevant mileage.
However, while Mr Blake claims that he is "doing them a favour by travelling more than 10 miles to one of its pharmacies", the reality is that he is perfectly free either to accept or reject any offer of work. In fact, where I have felt that the distance would be too great or the journey too arduous I have turned down work as a locum. After all, it would be both foolish and unprofessional to do anything that might result in one not being able to arrive at work on time and in a fit and fresh state.
Annette Morant
Edgware, Middlesex