Cancellation of locums - both sides of the story

[dippsy]

I know that the last post for this was last year but I will also add my two pence worth. Even though I rarely locum anymore (only on Saturdays now) my contract was recently cancelled stating that they had got another pharmacist to cover some of the weekday and weekend. They had confirmed dates in January 2011 but stated that would no longer be needed.

I was naturally a bit p***ed off and wrote a rather narky letter to their head office about breach of contract etc. Having then spoken to the PDA they stated that 3 days notice on either side is normally acceptable so I suppose this leaves me with no choice on this matter. I have learnt from this. Always get a written contract with the pharmacy which is what I will be doing from now on with the terms attached.

On another note (and on the brighter side) I was planning on leaving them in Feb anyway due to payment issues. I have sent them a total of about 10 late payment reminders recently over the past half a year or so. Some payments were late by almost 75 days after the due date on the invoice and were only resolved after threats of compensation and interest charges. I have also noted that I was not the only one affected by these payment issues .... Some other pharmacists who I have known also faced similar issues with this small multiple.

I just hope that my replacement fairs better in the environment

[lishad]

I arrived to my locum work one morning, on the day I was booked (but it was cancelled a while ago) by mistake and found out another locum was booked by the same agency. Can a locum agency book you and then tell you that the pharmacy no longer need a locum, then give the job to another locum?