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Letters to the Editor
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Pharmacy workforce
Is there likely to be a surplus of pharmacists in the future?
From Mr M. Taylor, MRPharmS
I have noticed in recent years the opening of a number of new schools
of pharmacy. The shortage of pharmacists in the UK means that an increase
in pharmacy graduates (and therefore, hopefully, newly qualified pharmacists)
should be welcome news to pharmacy owners. However, I wonder how much
thought has been given to the number of new pharmacy graduates the country
actually needs. From the start of my undergraduate degree we were constantly
reminded that no pharmacists were short of work and how secure a job
as a pharmacist was.
The Government boasts an increase of pharmacy students of a third within
the past decade and predicts further increases with the opening of new
schools of pharmacy.1 Does this increase in graduates sound proportionate
to the current shortage or is it likely to produce a surplus of pharmacists
in the UK? A surplus will be good news for the big pharmacy chains, but
bad news for the individual pharmacist who is likely to see downward
pressure on wages and decreased job security. I would like to know if
the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has any predictions of how many pharmacists
there are likely to be in 10 years and how close this figure will be
to the likely demand for pharmacists? If the Society is to protect the
interests of its members it has a duty to ensure that the output of pharmacy
schools approximately matches the predicted demand for pharmacists.
Michael Taylor
Wallasey, Merseyside
Reference
1. Department of Health. A vision for pharmacy in the new NHS. London:
The Department;2003.
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SUE AMBLER, head of research and development at the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society, responds:
Understanding the workforce is one of the three themes
in the five-year research and development strategy of the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society’s Council. Over the past five years, the Society has been
investing considerable resources in understanding the supply of, and
demand for, workforce in pharmacy. More recently, and working in partnership
with the health departments in England, Scotland and Wales, the Society
has developed and tested a workforce model that enables the impact of
policy (in health, education and trade and industry) on pharmacy workforce
to be evaluated. The model has already been used to assess a number
of
different policy scenarios and all those that include the current expansion
of new schools (and the expansion in student numbers in the existing
schools) demonstrate that the number of pharmacists available to the
workforce
is unlikely to outstrip demand in the foreseeable future.
The research has all been, or is about to be published, and is available
from the Society’s website. The information is thus available for all stakeholders
and individual pharmacists to read and consider — including those organisations
whose responsibilities cover representing the interests of individual pharmacists
and negotiating their terms, conditions and remuneration. I should point out
that it is not and never has been the role of the Society to negotiate terms
and conditions for members, but by publishing the results of our research we
can legitimately inform wider debates. |
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal