Community pharmacy may no longer be a family-friendly career
Some female community pharmacists face difficulties meeting domestic commitments owing to long working hours, supervisory requirements and staffing problems, according to research presented at the Pharmacy Practice Research Trust's biennial awards seminar in London earlier this month.
Wendy Gidman, a PhD student at the University of Manchester, presented
her two-year project, which looked at the factors that motivate working
practices in female community pharmacists over the age of 30 years.
Dr Gidman found that, despite the common assumption that community pharmacy
is a flexible and family-friendly sector to work in, many of the pharmacists
she interviewed had moved to primary care trust jobs because the pressure
in community pharmacy was too high.
Dr Gidman conducted qualitative interviews with a sample of 30 community
pharmacists from 12 primary care trusts in the north-west of England.
Most were white British and a high proportion were employed by multiples
or supermarkets.
Dr Gidman said: “More than half of the cases I looked at showed
difficulties in terms of long hours and year-round staffing, which sometimes
meant people couldn’t take annual leave. Over the past decade,
the volume of prescriptions has increased by 50 per cent and is increasing
by 8 per cent year-on-year, but the workforce has remained static, putting
increased pressure on the pharmacists. In extreme cases child care issues,
such as incompatible nursery times, have meant some women pharmacists
are pushed into low paid employment to meet lifestyle and domestic commitments,
while others have had to give up working in the profession altogether.”
A year after conducting the interviews, Dr Gidman quantified and categorised
the opinions of a further sample of 40 pharmacists (10 of whom participated
in stage 1). Preliminary findings suggest that provision of additional
services under the new contract without an increase in staff numbers
is a further source of pressure on pharmacists.
Dr Gidman’s research was funded through a Sir Hugh Linstead Fellowship
from the Pharmacy Practice Research Trust. |
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