What the census reveals
Less than 50 per cent of pharmacists are in full-time employment, a fact revealed by Karen Hassell, senior research fellow at the School of Pharmacy, University of Manchester, when she spoke at the meeting of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council earlier this month. Dr Hassell has been examining the data collected from the Society’s pharmacy workforce census carried out in late 2003. From the census, a whole host of interesting facts and figures have emerged that will delight the most ardent of would-be Ben Schotts (p625).
This is not meant to belittle the research — far from it. Arguably
for the first time, and taken with the data gleaned from the 2002 census,
a dynamic picture is beginning to appear of the way the pharmacy workforce
is developing. This will become an increasingly important tool for the
Society, for the government, for schools of pharmacy and for other people
involved in planning to determine the likely workforce needs in the short
term and the much longer term.
In addition to material published in this issue of The Journal, there
are other interesting findings which members will be able to access from
the Council meeting transcript at www.rpsgb.org shortly. One of these
is the number of pharmacists who stated in the census that they currently
work less than 10 hours per week. There are 2,100 of them — contributing
the equivalent of 440 whole-timers. Dr Hassell suggested that some or
all of them might choose to leave the Register in January (because they
do not wish to have to undertake continuing professional development
and pay a £256 fee). More likely than leaving the Register is that
they will opt to join the non-practising Register and instead of paying
a retention fee of £116 (as they have done this year) they will
pay £46 in 2005. Similarly, the workforce data will shed light
on the number of pharmacists who work in pharmacy-related fields but
who do not need to be pharmacists and so decide to leave the Register
completely. Another group the census can track comprises the retired
pharmacists, who currently number some 6,000 members. How many of them
will be deterred from staying on the Register by having to pay £46
instead of £22?
None of these examples is designed to reopen the debate on the new fee
structure, but just to show what valuable information lies hidden within
the census data.
And all that is before the policy-makers consider the impact on the workforce
when the current cohort of women students (now 60 per cent of the intake)
have children. This issue does not just affect pharmacy: the medical
and teaching professions are also having to manage increasing numbers
of women graduates. The workforce census data will help plan for the
future and reveal trends — in theory, before they become a problem.
It is up to the profession’s leaders to ensure that they do not
become a problem in practice.
Clarification
In the third paragraph, one sentence should have read: “Dr Hassell said that some or all of them might choose to leave the Register (by implication in January because they do not wish to have to undertake continuing professional development and pay a £256 fee).” |
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