Supermarket Pharmacies

[Hello]

Yes retail, I will try and be more positive next time lol. as I say I am from the glass half empty ilk probably because I did have good times and they have been taken away from us all. Going in as a newbie, yes the pre-reg is quite a good starting salary as a graduate and after pre-reg still good money but you will work hard. There will be more opportunities for the youngsters as I say us oldies will be put out to pasture (not legal but difficult to prove).

[Tony Schofield]

I work in community pharmacy and I believe it can be a great place to be. I can't understand the want to be a locum as all the best things about being a pharmacist in the hub of your community eg the relationships and trust that develops can't develop when you are a temporary pharmacist taking a different job every day.

I worked for Boots many years ago and multiple pharmacy is very different now to how it was then, probably that IS the reason so many wish to be self employed locums. However the big companies do have promotion prospects and they do have some exciting and well paid positions for those wanting a career development that can't be achieved at a small independent.

Sparky, credit where it's true. No-one does comment when something has gone right and we do whinge easily. Just as one bad patient ruins an otherwise good day.

Sorry to hear you believe you may be unemployed soon. I know of many private companies recruiting physiotherapists and of course, gyms, football clubs, sports centres etc all require your skills. This is a company local to me who do both private and NHS work around the country Sports Injury Clinic, Physiotherapist in Newcastle,Physiotherapist in Durham, Physiotherapist in Manchester, Connect Physical Health, Sports Injury Clinic Newcastle, Sports and Exercise Medicine Consultant, SEM, Sport, Rehab, Sports Massage, Physio
There are others as I have met one of the directors a few times and he told me about the competition he faces. It may be worth getting a job in one of these firms and after a bit of experience launch your own!

[Hello]

Tony I agree with you wholeheartedly, I totally loved my job in Britain's Caring Sharing Pharmacy when I left University but not now, they are now run on a shoe string which is a shame. If I could obtain an NHS contract I would be over the moon and go to work with a spring in my step, eager to chat to all the customers all day and every day. Yes you can see your profession from your side of the fence and I agree that it must look rosy, the reasons all the whingers on here don't like it have been gone over ad nausiem esp the long hours, lack of breaks, high stress value, week-end work etc. Friday afternoons are always a killer for me as you see a lot of big employers, factories and offices closing down 2:30-3:00ish for the weekend and everyone heading to the pub or the golf course. We still have 4 hours of hard graft at the grindstone still to do and invariably the Saturday as well.

I think yes the multiples would be good to work for if they had better staffing and more a more clinical environment to work in. Usually you walk into a store and there is no room on the shelves for all the Rx's and they are overflowing and stored on the floor (not ethical), tote boxes scattered over the floor, crates of nutritional drinks piled up on the floor, Tubs of unfinished Rx's strewn accross the dispensary counter, a balnce clip as thick as your arm and in summer usually the temperature is a way over 25o (again unethical). It usually resembles a bomb site with no room to swing a cat.

Compare this to pharmacy in Spain for example, you walk into a nice airy, air coditioned pharmacy, no clutter, clinical surroundings, usually two pharmacists in crisp white tunics (maybe they just look whiter because of their tans and dark hair lol), you ask at the counter and you are spoken to by the pharmacist within seconds. This is the kind of environment most of us crave to carry out our work in. (albeit you can buy Augmentin Tablets without an Rx lol).

Yes Tony I do look on your job with tinges of envy and can see so clearly where your enthusiasm towards the profession comes from, unfortunately the majority of us will never reach the position you have attained. If you could work in one of the stores i describe for a week in those conditions I have described I wonder if you would have the same outlook. To do it day in day out with the prospect of only 5 weeks off a year, for me at least is soul destroying. That is why locuming was the only option for me. At least for me I get to see my wife and kids more and am not continually tired. There are of course ones who will thrive in this environment and there will always be a supply of them. So it's horses for courses, different strokes for different folks just depends what you want out of life, I'm not decrying pharmacy at all as I have had a reasonably comfortable life up until now and I feel that I HAVE made a difference to people's lives, I am content inside, I just don't know what is lurking round the next corner. I think Tony we are just going to have to agree to disagree although I think fundamentally we both agree on how pharmacy should look and feel, we just see it from different angles which makes us disagree. I don't get that warm, fuzzy feeling inside when heading to work any more which I suspect you still do, maybe it's a mid-life crisis on my part lol.

[SolomonQ]

problem could be that alot of these chains are owned by international companies who try to apply their international healthcare model to the Uk where healthcare is basically synonymous with the NHS, where there just aren't the margins.

Despite what's going on, I feel I am still able to make a big difference to people's life as a pharmacist. Even though many people feel like they are dispensing monkeys, all they have to do is make a stand, although it's easier just to get on with it and not make any noise, after all that is the British way.

[Tony Schofield]

maybe it's a mid-life crisis on my part lol.

I know all about those! I've had two.

[Hello]

http://i785.photobucket.com/albums/y...ktopiclist.gif

[Tony Schofield]

Brilliant!

[Hello]

lol

[sparkybw]

Thanks for the job heads up but your link wants people with a Masters in physio so that counts me out. The main problem with private work is that you need to have three years post qualifying experience before you can get paid by the insurance companies so that rules that out as well.

I must admit that my favourite placement when training was in a private clinic and I felt that I was of much more benefit to the patients than I was working in the NHS with time limits on appointments that meant you didn't have time to get hands on with the patients. By the time that you talked to them, and they got undressed, you would only have a couple of minutes before they had to get dressed again so that you could see the next one. Bit of a conveyor belt approach.

It wasn't helped by clinical guidelines that seemed geared at getting patients in and out of hospital before they had time to warm up the bed! I still cringe when I remember one hospital in Scotland boasting in the Physio journal about how they had cut down the inpatient time for a hip replacement to three days. That's a day before surgery, day of surgery, then mobilised and out the door on the third day. They will probably end up doing drive-thru hip replacements in the hospital car park next and the patient won't even need to get out of the car.

And remember that the majority of hip replacements are done on older people, many of whom can't manage crutches and who will effectively be trapped in their homes for six weeks while they heal. And don't start me on about community care! Biggest waste of time ever. A physio spending more time driving house to house than they do treating patients. Give me strength!

Pharmacists might believe that they have the exclusive rights on whinging about the NHS but believe me there is a queue of other health care workers who are just as fed up and frustrated at what is happening in the service. I think that you just have to hope that the people with whom you work are good at what they do, take their share of the work, and you don't actually hate being on the same planet as them!

[dippsy]

I just don't know what is lurking round the next corner.

I think if you really search in yourself, you will probably know what us lurking around that corner ... and for locums (and for employed pharmacists) in general, I don't think it looks that good for various reasons that we all know about.

The key is to look at the niches at the moment. One niche is GP practice work - generally v. clinical (!) and I find very rewarding (both financially and professionally). Another example is to complete your IP courses and set up your own clinics (just starting on this one myself).

I agree that it is soul destroying doing something that you don't enjoy, so hence the need for you to look at what you really want and make preparations to head in that direction.

I just wish I had listened to the little voice in my head all those years ago and made the changes then rather than now. Anyhow, better late than never!