Saturday locums?

[Defblade]

but then you could always argue...you don't know what is on the other end of the phone...part of prioritisation is knowing what you need to deal with, then you can sort out what needs to be done first....

i guess it applies more in hospital when the natures of the calls could be deemed more "serious" than those in community....just a thought!

I tend to argue that there is little/nothing I can think of in community pharmacy that is so urgent I need to distract myself from the middle of other work to deal with it. If there is anything of a medical nature that is THAT urgent, there's a fair chance they should be phoning for an ambulance instead (or NHS Direct ).

I will ask staff to take a number and then call them back (either when the rush has finished, or if there's no sign of that, after the immediate work that was already in when they rang (ie, in turn)); I have left people on hold (when they are insistant with the staff) while I finish what I'm doing.... usually turns out it wasn't important enough to wait one or two minutes for

The phone at one branch I work at eventually says "I'm sorry, we are unable to take your call at the moment" after about 30-60 secs of ringing; occasionally the phone at the other branch is actually unplugged/taken off the hook for maybe 15 minutes while we get caught up. When the bosses are around, the phone is not a problem as they spend all their time calling other people on it!!

[bleepholder]

i'm with you on that one...i guess for me in a hospital, i can't always ignore the phone ringing!!

can imagine in community there is never an emergency..maybe a customer who says they have missed their levothyroxine dose for the past day and insists on an emergency supply beofre they drop dead

[pharmer7]

but you saturday locums need a kicking and are just as useless and annoying as the "airhead schoolkids" mentioned above by some ignoramus!

While I may have been wrong for generalising all of saturday staff as "airhead schoolkids", you also should watch what you say tinker, so don't be a hypocrite.

i have had to stop certain locums coming because of lazziness and reluctantce to work, you locums think saturdays should be an easy day
and don't care what mess you leave behind because you're not coming into it monday morning!

Don't generalise all of us like this, I work 50 hours+ every week, have to travel long distances, work in a family business, deal with angry patients, follow bad locums, etc, so don't blame us for your companies inability to hire a decent, full time pharmacist. Although, just by listening to your bellyaching, I can see why they have difficulty keeping one ...

[romary18]

Tinker,

I recognise that you have probably borne the brunt of some 'interesting' locum pharmacists but please do not generalise. I work only weekends as I have young children but I always work very hard while I am at a branch. Most of the concerns you mention are probably a result of your company being unwilling to pay for sensible pharmacists to come so you get the riff raff. Every time I walk into a pharmacy, I am always under unfair scrutiny based on the work of some other random pharmacist which is a really unhelpful start to the day. I always feel I have to butter up all the staff in the first 15 minutes so they will give me the benefit of the doubt. As a permanent member of staff, your attitude also determines how co-operative your saturday locum will be. If you start by giving the impression that the pharmacist is rubbish even before they begin, you rub people off the wrong way. Anyway, I could go on but I will probably get increasingly annoyed. I have been on the receiving end of some 'interesting' locums before I was a pharmacist myself but now as a pharmacist, the rubbish I sometimes have to put up with from staff is unbelievable and yet I smile about it and remain professional because thankfully, I am only there for the day. Also, walking into a shop where I am responsible for all that goes on with untrained staff, no order in the dispensary so who knows where drugs are kept, a mess I am expected to deal with from the week before, some silly person decided to order twice as much the day before because they were not going to be there to put it away, some addicts being insulting because I choose to abide by the law where the regular pharmacist would give in etc etc and then getting a call the next day, saying I left the dispensary in a mess because there was a prescription on the bench!! I have considered taking before and after pics of dispensaries just so I can prove that I actually made it better but hey I am just the locum who takes the fall for anything because I am not there to defend myself!

Thankfully, most of the people I work with are excellent and I end up having a great day even if I have worked my socks off.

Anyway, enough for now.

[Messier]

when i do a saturday i always assume i am alone. the crunch comes when as RP you can't find any SOP's. do we shut and never get an offer of work for that client again?