Something rotten

[El-loco]

Do any of you actually read your P.J.s?

No, I thought not.

Have a look at the editorial of the 15th May edition.

Tell me - do you not find that insulting?

The fact that community pharmacy has failed to achieve its potential is down to you being a locum!

Locums are second class pharmacists and privide a second class service to our patients.

The editor (Olivia Timbs) herself blames you for the shortcomings of community pharmacy. You are responsible for the lack of continuity, you don't engage with the more clinical aspects of pharmacy (you are not acreditted for MURs nor EHC etc)

Just lie down and tell them to walk all over you - that's what you're good at isn't it?

Or would you like to do something about it?

(But I don't know how to mister!)

Wake the f**k up!

[culchie82]

Read it on Saturday, had a discussion and a laugh with a fellow locum and friend. A load of balls in my opinion, and maybe it's just a ploy by the the large multiples to con everybody into full times and thus save on Locum fees. Nothing would surprise me where money is concerned. Also, who's this Olivia Timbs anyway? Is she another one of these big wigs sitting in a nice cosy office, drinking skinny lattes and dreaming up more ridiculous regulations for us to follow. Excuse my language but these c$%ts have no idea what it's like at the coalface anymore.

[Pharmanaut]

Doesn't the PJ do an excellent job of ensuring that the last vestiges of morale are truly beaten out of us.

[El-loco]

Read it on Saturday, had a discussion and a laugh with a fellow locum and friend.

This is NOT funny!

A load of balls in my opinion, and maybe it's just a ploy by the the large multiples to con everybody into full times and thus save on Locum fees.

No, it relates to a reasonable article written by two non-pharmacists who ask some sensible questions but make some wrong assumptions - just as you do when you believe that an employed pharmacist is cheaper than a locum. Not when you add sick pay, maternity pay, holiday pay, NI contributions etc into the formula. Fundamentally it confuses the symptoms of a major problem with its causes.

Also, who's this Olivia Timbs anyway? Is she another one of these big wigs sitting in a nice cosy office, drinking skinny lattes and dreaming up more ridiculous regulations for us to follow. Excuse my language but these c$%ts have no idea what it's like at the coalface anymore.

She is the editor of the Pharmaceutical Journal, the official journal of the RPSGB from which the public and the authorities gain their image of us.

Some of the comments in her leading article are insulting to locums who make up more than 23% of the community pharmacy workforce.

Will you be a member of a professional body whose official journal insults you when the GPhC takes over regulation and membership of the society is voluntary?

If you, and others do not will you be happy to have no professional body to represent and promote your professional interests? Remember you will be regulated by a government quango and you will have NO say in the matter. You will have the PDA as your union to defend you when you get into the deep excrement but nobody to promote your profession to the DoH and the public.

Still feel like laughing?

[bleepholder]

i doubt they re going to get rid of you locums based on an article in the PJ, which as you rightly pointed out, prob nto many people read?!?

if you feel that passionate about it all, maybe boycott pharmacy and see how they respond...but i feel there will always be someone to take up your extra shifts, May even be some poor hospital pharmacist wanting to make some extra cash on the side?!?!?

[DavidS]

Well, as a locum accredited for murs, ehc, etc, I can say that most of the accreditations are a complete waste of time, because they don't teach us anything new. What they are is some kind of licence to give out stock /do services, and not have to charge the customer for it.

It has nothing to do with us aquiring skills, other than those required to submit the correct invoices.

[culchie82]

Have you got your tin hat ready then El Loco? What exactly do you propose to do?
As much as I was laughing at the article, I was also dismissing it you'll be glad to know. I'm confused however, because in your first post you find the article "insulting", however you subsequently go on to tell us that it was a "reasonable article written by two non-pharmacists". I thought by the general tone of your first comment, that you were generally inviting us all to have a go (how wrong I was).
Also I stand by my assertions about Locum verus employed pay -if you are a male whos's never sick, then sick and maternity pay doesn't even come into the equation. Some locums might not even take the standard 5 weeks holidays that employees get.

[bleepholder]

Do any of you actually read your P.J.s?

No, I thought not.

Quite presumptive of you to assume we don't read our PJs...I eagerly await to see what my annual subscription to the RPSGB brings onto my front door step each week!!!! its rather inteersting, even if it is just to look at the jobs in the back

[Fleegle]

May even be some poor hospital pharmacist wanting to make some extra cash on the side?!?!?

Pretty much says it all really. 'Poor hospital pharmacists' should not set foot into uncharted community territory in order to procure some extra cash. Leave it to the guys who know what they're doing. Editorials such as El loco describes would then not be published.

Fleeg.

[bleepholder]

lol, cheek!

but possibly an element of truth in there...i probably would just bumble my way through community, and hope for the best!!!