The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7228 p844
14 December 2002

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Letters to the Editor

Locums

Locums will be paid what employers can get away with

From Mr G. Southall-Edwards, MRPharmS

As long as employee and locum pharmacists are content to stand alone and not together in a strong, representative body, then they will continue to be worth whatever the employer can get away with.

In particular, what the employer can "get away with" will, in addition to the lowest pay, also include long hours without breaks, insufficient staff, badly trained or untrained staff and general interference with the locum pharmacist's professional freedoms (to mention just a few of the terms of service which will be imposed) by those who have the corporate muscle to impose their will.

As the writer of last week's article (PJ, 30 November, p773) has been told by myself on a number of occasions, pharmacists need to get together and form an organisation with real teeth; now is the time ... but I have been saying this in print in The Journal and elsewhere for some years but few seem to be motivated to shape their destiny effectively.

Yet the regular post and e-mails that I receive in my other capacity as a barrister, underline the fact that pharmacist locums are a threatened and endangered species, completely at the mercy of their wealthy, powerful contracting opponents. But will they ever do anything about it and start calling the tune, which they could so easily do?

The multiples, particularly the supermarkets, choose to be in this business; they should consider the manpower available and its costs before complaining of the possible costs of their unnecessary, long opening hours and associated stressful and dangerous working conditions, which inevitably lead to demands for increasing rates of pay.

Those who would like to change things for the better should contact me via e-mail.

G. Southall-Edwards
Tirol, Austria
e-mail: barrister@netway.at

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