The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7437 p132
3 February 2007

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• The Journal (7)
• Clinical trials
• Renal pharmacy
• Modified release morphine
• Pharmacy practice
• Locum pharmacy
• Pharmacy leadership
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• Ethics
• The Society
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Letters to the Editor

Locum pharmacy

SOPs and employment status

From Mr B. P. Threlfall, MRPharmS

I recently attended a training day for General Commissioners of Income Tax, of which I am one. This included the now seemingly obligatory workshop and role-play sessions. One of these exercises, based on actual appeals by HM Revenue and Customs, questioned the employment status, and particularly self-employment status, of gravediggers, pallbearers and organists used by and paid by a funeral director. Having swiftly despatched these individuals to their fates, our group widened its discussions to look at circumstances that might have changed our decisions. Essential to self-employment status is the question of control and the supply of tools and facilities — but mainly the question of control.

For whatever reasons, the discussions centred on the employment status of locum pharmacists and particularly of locums who signed up to their employers’ standard operating procedures. To a man (and woman) our group concluded that, in accepting the content and signing an SOP, a locum pharmacist relinquished much of his or her independence in that pharmacy and, hence, one of the main arguments to self-employment status. We would have found in favour of HMRC that such a locum was not self-employed.

Many SOPs are, almost by definition, similar in content and I am not for one moment suggesting that locums are or should be mavericks in the way that they operate within a pharmacy but that individuals should carefully consider the implications of signing SOPs alongside the implications of not signing them, the latter implications not being restricted solely to employment status.

Brian Threlfall
Ashton with Stodday, Lancashire

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