I am new to this forum but really feel it is the only place I can turn at the moment.
I started a student pharmacy technician post september last year at my local hospital. We are doing the diploma in two parts using the distance learning method for the theory side of things. The theory is fine and at the moment I am taking it in my stride as I have a science background. It is the NVQ side of things that is a real problem.
I am based in both dispensary and stores. In stores things are fine and progressing well. However in dispensary I am not being allowed to learn the job as a technician, but rather being used as an assistant. I have been working now for 5 months (almost quarter of the time I will be in this post) and have barely been allowed to dispense. I have tried raising this with our NVQ coordinators who have really not been helpful as they won't stand up to the management in dispensary on our part.
The reasons we have been given are that when we first started to dispense mistakes were being made and this was posing an obvious risk. I hadn't dispensed before coming here and neither had the other student tech who started at the same time as me so the whole process was new. Noone actually monitored us from the start and we were told to ask questions if we had problems. We did ask questions, but people were too busy to bother helping and so mistakes were inevitable in my opinion. Also I am a grafter and have been told on numerous occassions that I am a good worker.
Every day I come in to dispensary my job is to basically answer the front and the hatch and to take phone calls. I am also asked to do the destruction, book back unused drugs and sort out the fp10s.
My question is whether the training is always this bad in pharmacy and whether anyone is experiencing the same problems? How will I ever get my NVQs signed off when I am not being allowed to do any of the required tasks? If so then its no wonder that the NHS is going down the pan when you have incompetent people in charge giving poor training and ending up with more incompetent people in the job.
Also to give you my opinion, I think the reasons given for us basically being the dispensary assistant were absolutely false. Just after we started, the dispensary assistant left for another job (don't blame her) and I think that really we are being used in her place because the department don't want to spend money on getting a new assistant when they can just use us.
Also so that you know, the other student tech is having exactly the same problems and has complained as I have but nothing has been done.
Sorry it was such a long post but I am so frustrated to the point of either applying for a new student tech post elsewhere this summer or leaving the profession entirely as I will already have wasted a year. I didn't come here to get a piece of paper saying I can do the job without actually being able to the job, I came here to start a new career.
Sorry forgot to mention, there is a dispensary co-ordinator who has been extremely awkward since the start and I think she has a special place reserved for me on her hit list if she goes rogue. I don't know what I ever did to upset her......I think being a man fills the criteria.....
For example she has raised her voice at me on several occassions although with no real justification. Once I asked her whether I would be doing any more dispensing and she lost the plot and basically gave me a telling off in front of the other dispensary staff to try to humiliate me (although really I enjoyed it). She constantly laughs if I have made any error at all, this started on the FIRST day when we were actually allowed to dispense. At the start of each day when there isn't a lot to do and people are standing around chatting, she will always come and scold me instead of anyone else. She won't let anyone train me on the till and says she will do it although she is never available to do so and mark off my competencies. When any error is made she will go straight to our NVQ co-ordinators rather than speaking to us face to face.........the list goes on.
The worst thing is that she is actually a very good dispensing technician as she hardly ever makes errors. I really think she is the wrong person for the job as co-ordinator as she has no people skills, god forbid she should ever become manager which she is pushing for. The problem is that she is the one I need to work with to complete my NVQs in dispensary.........
Regrettably a very common experience. I too came across what seemed like a general hatred of men in hospital. Hospital pharmacy is female dominated. It also happens in community pharmacy where several people appear to have a resentment of others. As a locum, I was able just to never return. I was lucky in never came across this attitude when I was the junior, but then the manager and dispenser were both men.
johnep
Ahhhhh buddy she sounds like a massive pain in the ass! Find comfort in the fact that if anyone has half a brain they won't promote her to manager.
As johnep has said, unfortunately it does happen. I've been working as a dispensary assistant for a while now and have witnessed some staff struggle with course co-ordinators to get their work signed off. What's different in my scenario is that it was the pharmacists which were co-ordinating the courses, not the technicians. I think the pharmacists have a greater appreciation of the learning process. Considering you have been in the grind for 5 months now you really should be dispensing. I was dispensing as soon as I started my NVQ level 1!!!
At the end of the day it is your call. Whether you jack it in or not, don't give up on pharmacy, look for another dispensary that need a trainee (independent if possible, managerial staff more likely to get involved I feel), you should be able to get the course transferred. Best of luck.
Cheers guys, I think I will stick with it for now and just try and force the issue if at all possible, although its really not comfortable to do so when your at junior level.
It could also be that I live and work in a small town and the hospital isn't that large either. I may look to transfer if at possible to one of the real hospitals in Manchester next year as its not too far away and would probably give me much better opportunities than working in a local hospital for local people!
Haha! That's sounds like a good idea, stick with it and see where you stand after your first year is over. You could always take the issue up with the examination board yourself, rather than going through management? Just find out who are in charge of your specific course and see what they can do.
Bless you...you sound like you are having an absolutely crappy time but what you are experiencing is normal. 90% of work based students get the s*** end of the stick. So you aren't alone. So many on here will empathise with you. Basically, NVQ 3 pharmacy students are cheap labour. They take you on for the standard two year contract and you get dumped with all the s*** jobs. This happend to me to some extent but I was lucky in that my tutors and NVQ assessors where amazing. They were and are the most professional and qualified pharmacy folk i've ever had the pleasure of working with. But we still had problems with the course.
As for this woman who is behaving like a kid in a playground, she must be related to the woman I currently have as my "supervisor"!! Ignore her if you can, if you can't, report her asap.
To get help with your course issues, call the external verifier as soon as you are able. They will be able to advise you.
The second half of the NVQ 3 is the most difficult part. But it's the part that allows you to prove that you can do the job of a Tech. Keep your chin up, use this website as much as you need to, contact your IV and remember that two years will be over before you know it and you can then move onwards and upwards.
Thought I'd just like to say I can kinda understand where you are coming from in the respect that I work in a supermarket pharmacy and get treated with little to no respect for the job I do. We have been without a pharmacy manager for nearly 3 years (and even when we did have her she was beyond useless) and all the staff have pitched in to do parts of the manager's job without any extra pay or thanks. We get shunned by other departments and staff, and no duty managers want to run our department because its too much hassle and they don't understand what is required. To even get basic items such as stamps, envelopes and staples is an issue because the person we have to speak to doesn't seem to like us and so half the time we have to take the items from the shop floor.
At the moment I get paid the same amount in the pharmacy as if I was stacking shelves or sitting on a checkout, despite having done the Interact and a NVQ2 and being in the pharmacy for over 7 years (I'd just like to say I have nothing against either job btw - its what I did when I first joined the company!).
I'm currently in the 2nd year of my NVQ3 and although the company have paid for it which I appreciate, I'll get little in the way of a pay rise when I'm done and I get little time to do any coursework when I'm there because the instant they see two or more of us in the pharmacy, we're whipped out to do teabreaks on checkouts or help put stock out on the shop floor. When you try and explain to the duty manager there should be two members of staff in the pharmacy during peak hours you get a shrug of the shoulders and told one member should be enough, and that they are only "borrowing" us for 15 minutes (which is always longer funny enough). More often then not I can be the only member of staff (bar the pharmacist) in the pharmacy which leaves me to serve customers, dispense prescriptions, sort out owings, put delivery away and complete the paperwork, look for evidence for my coursework etc etc...the list goes on.
Despite all this I do enjoy my job and I enjoy learning and as I'm not bound to the company by a contract I shall probably look for another job once my course is done, which is a shame because the staff I have got in the pharmacy are a good bunch even if we aren't supported by management. The NVQ3 is a hard slog but I'm really hoping the end result will be worth it, and 2 years is little in terms of a career.
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