From Mr G. Tyagi,
MRPharmS
SIR,—It was valuable to read the views of Mrs O’Neill (PJ, September
23, p445) about the qualities
of some of the locums who attend her pharmacy. I wonder if there are any competent
ones who have been there, and if not, why not?
I have been both a manager and locum over the past decade, and have encountered
excellent locums, assistants and managers in the course of my work. I have also
come across locums who are incompetent or unpleasant, managers who leave their
pharmacy in conditions which render it almost impossible to work in as a locum,
and the occasional bloody-minded and obstructive assistant. However, the way
to change things is to complain and/or to vote with your feet. Mrs O’Neill
should be complaining to her manager about unsuitable locums. My experience
is that managers do listen to assistants, and poor locums rarely get repeat
bookings. The other side of the equation is that there are some pharmacies or
groups which find it difficult to attract locums because of poor conditions.
In an ideal world, a manager should be able to trust a locum to provide a good,
professional service in his or her absence. This means that the locum is competent
and willing to carry out the normal duties of a pharmacist (as Mrs O’Neill
points out, this includes dispensing, advising and counter-prescribing, and
reordering stock). In return, the locum should find systems in place that work,
and staff who are competent to explain, for example, the computer, the dispensary
layout, and the reordering process.
Rather than entering into an adversarial process with various groups blaming
each other for breakdowns in procedures, should we not be co-operating to ensure
that the locum system works to the benefit of all, and specifically to the patient?
Perhaps the Association of Locum Pharmacy Agencies might be willing to sponsor
such an exercise.
Gyan Tyagi
Sheffield