The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7244 p514
12 April 2003

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Letters to the Editor

Hospital pharmacy

Maternity leave does not add to NHS staffing problems

From Dr D. K. Scott, MRPharmS

We were pleased to note that you covered our recent report on hospital staffing (PJ, 29 March, p430) but would like to correct any misunderstanding that might have arisen from the headlined section that dealt with maternity leave.

The National Health Service Pharmacy Education and Development Committee does not believe that maternity leave adds to the problems of the service. Rather, it is a feature of our society which we are happy to accept and work with.

Our main point in relation to maternity leave was that it is an important area of employment practice for hospital pharmacies and that we do not know enough about the patterns of maternity leave to be able to allow for it properly in our workforce planning.

We certainly do not know if the numbers not returning to work are increasing or not. As far as we can tell, no one else in the NHS has this information for any other staff group.

We intend to conduct a special survey shortly to investigate this matter and establish how many people return to work, and to what proportions of their former working hours.

There are other proven trends, especially one towards locum work, that are more concerning and may contribute to the widespread failure of hospitals to meet national service framework targets and Audit Commission recommendations.

David Scott
Member, NHS Pharmacy Education and Development Committee

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