Workforce review to indicate reasons for leaving profession
A national workforce review is set to reveal how the make-up of the pharmacy profession is changing and what it needs to do to meet the challenges of the future. The details of the review will be published in July
but some early results were discussed at two meetings in London this
week.
Patricia Oakley, director of Practices Made Perfect Ltd (a health management
consultancy), said: “We need to understand the risk of people leaving
the profession but, in the main, pharmacy is an incredibly loyal profession.
The greatest risk is that people are dropping their hours. This erosion
of commitment to working hours results from people’s quality of
life anchor outweighing their professional anchor.”
Pharmacy will have to adapt to changes in the health service, particularly
the locations in which care is delivered, Dr Oakley said. These include
new primary care treatment centres, medicines management centres, local
general hospitals and bigger GP practices.
Part of the research involved a psychological profile of pharmacists
in different age groups. Several defined groups emerged. “New entrants” are
bright, eager and mobile graduates with high expectations and demanding
of good experiences. This group is likely to stay in a job for a couple
of years and then leave, perhaps to travel around the world. “They
are held up by the ‘mature stayers’,” she explained. “Mature
stayers” are steady, wise, with moderated expectations but growing
tired and voicing quality of life issues. “This group is waking
up and becoming vocal about their rights and needs,” she said.
A rapid feminisation of the workforce has been observed. This is not
just about women becoming pharmacists, but also men taking on roles that
previously would have been regarded as exclusive to women.
The research also examined which variables matter in terms of an individual’s
predisposition to leave a particular job, sector or their working life.
Different models are being developed for small businesses, multiple chains,
acute care and primary care.
Full reports of the meetings — one about pharmacy in the far future
and the other about pharmacy workforce issues — will be published
in The Journal shortly. |
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