The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7167 p425-429
29 September 2001

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Community pharmacy (2 letters)

Poor work, poor pay and poor working conditions

From Mr B. J. Hewitt, MRPharmS

Why has community pharmacy practice become so intolerable? I believe there are three reasons: the work itself, working conditions and pay. Robert Gartside, in his “Broad Spectrum” article (PJ, 18 August, p226), reveals that many pharmacists have had enough of a career where most of their working time is taken up with the issuing of prescriptions, coupled with the distractions of shop work highlighted by Charles Williams (PJ, 15 September, p348). In a busy dispensing pharmacy, there is often only time to be dispensing and checking — this is monotonous and boring. Could some percentage of dispensing errors be due to a lack of concentration born out of boredom?

Working conditions are atrocious — up to 13-hour shifts and no tea or lunch breaks away from the place of work. Some pharmacists I have spoken to find the new open plan dispensaries stressful, with queues of customers staring at them or calling out for attention while they attempt to concentrate. I have even seen customers walk into dispensaries, which highlights public growing lack of respect for pharmacy.

Pay, too, has been highlighted in The Journal. What keeps us so far away from the £120 per hour solicitor, £50 per hour doctor and £30 per hour electrician? These are true professions that charge for services; we are merely traders whose income depends on goods sold and NHS items supplied. Services we offer are handed out for nothing in desperate attempts to increase NHS items. Without these extra sources of income, how can we hold our best support staff when we expect counter assistants and dispensers to be higher skilled but lower paid than supermarket cashiers? If an electrician gets £30 per hour and a decorator £20 per hour then surely with the stress and responsibility of community pharmacy the profession should demand rates closer to £25 per hour. Supply and demand should mean pharmacists are worth more than £18 per hour at this time of manpower shortage.

We must move pharmacists out of the dispensary and charge for services, because only in this way can the independent compete with supermarkets. Competing as traders against supermarkets is hopeless. If the status quo remains and I am worth less than a decorator, then taking up law as advised by Adrian Korsner (PJ, 8 September, p324) would only be logical.

B. J. Hewitt
Bristol

Mutation or degeneration

From Mr C. V. Hammond, FRPharmS

The gloomy forecast made by Verdict (PJ, 15 September, p339) reminds me of similar ones made during the past 40 years. Most of them have been based on trading considerations similar to Verdict’s statement that “the best option may be to form alliances with competitors or simply to sell out to [independent pharmacy’s] larger rivals”.

The manner in which a group of colleagues in the Hertfordshire and Essex areas approached this type of situation, was described in my article, “Development of a pharmacy group practice” (PJ, 7 February 1970, p126). This group developed from a “community centre” type of pharmacy that had a sufficient volume of dispensing to make pharmacy viable, but not self-supporting, without the sale of cosmetics and films. The development was based on professional ideals as then recommended in the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) brochure “Sub commission on the ‘Techniques de la Pharmacie d’officine’, its constitution, its aims, its activities”.

Through membership of FIP, I was able to meet colleagues from countries all over Western Europe and to correspond with others in Hungary and the United States. All of them were actively engaged in the general practice of pharmacy. It was clear that there was a common desire to serve the public in the true profession of pharmacy unhampered by extraneous commerce.

In practice our group at that time found that our ideals could only be achieved where there were sufficient doctors grouped near to a pharmacy and a viable number of NHS items per month.

It is now history how such groups, often beginning with joint buying, were eventually replaced with mutual or friendly society wholesalers who were able to develop computer related stock control leading to further professional use of computers. Unfortunately, questions of price control, wholesalers combining, the need for public money and the increase in out-of-town supermarkets led to what exists today.

Verdict’s statistics are based on “health and beauty sales”. My experience since 1947 is that health care is of paramount importance, leaving beauty to “the eye of the beholder”. I agree with the comments in the PJ’s leading article, “The NPA looks to the future” concerning strategic objectives (PJ, 15 September, p336). The impression is that merchandising and profit are given more value than satisfying professional activity. In comparison with this, I take heart from other news concerning patient care such as diabetes screening, help with sight problems and a partnership between community pharmacists and general practitioners.

Refurbishment and total health are easier to achieve with good financial resources. Self-care is a good concept but, in my opinion, the NHS should be able to provide reasonable payment for health services that health workers could provide, in addition to those now recognised.

Victor Hammond
Birkdale, Merseyside

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