moving from hosp to retail

[Asterix]

How difficult is it to do straight after pre-reg?

[johnep]

No difficulty at all, but would be wise to start off in a multi pharmacist pharmacy to start with.
johnep

[Asterix]

thanks for that johnep, how hard will it be to find a job in a lloyds, boots etc when you have just finished your pre-reg in a hospital though.

[SolomonQ]

lloyds and boots and other pharmacies have their own pre-regs who they have spent a year training and "duping" in their own way of retail commercial thinking (targets, MURs etc...), they don't want the best clinician, just someone who can meet their targets and be easy to manage. Clinical knowledge in retail sector only slows you down.

The impression I get is that you think hospital trained pharmacists are better pharmacists than retail trained ones. well, that may or may not be the case but hospital trained pharmacists aren't better retail pharmacists than retail trained pharmacists. and that's what pharmacy chains want good retail pharmacists

[Asterix]

so is there no point of me doing pre-reg in hosp solomon?

[SolomonQ]

Depends on what you want and what your priorities/goals are in life. In hospital you earn less because you work less hours i.e. 37.5 hrs per week compared to ~45hrs in retail. The diff between the two can easily be made up by working the saturday in retail. the difference after tax could be made up by this extra days work.

Do pre-reg in hospital, work a couple of years in hospital and with a bit of moving around (transfering) you could quite easily land yourself in a senior band 7 job, by year 3. If you don't like it you've got experience in retail to look to move to this sector.

[johnep]

Good wisdom, Solomon. That is exactly what I did while working in industry.
johnep

[SolomonQ]

Relatively speaking pharmacists aren't that badly paid in hospital compared to doctors in the early years.

Doctors: "In the most junior hospital trainee post (Foundation Year 1) the basic starting salary is £22,412. This increases in Foundation Year 2 to £27,798"

Pharmacists:

Pre-reg (Band 5)=~21k
Newly qualified (Band 6)=~25 (going upto 34k)

Taking into account that medicine degree is 5 years long, this means 7 years after starting their degrees the medics have earned about 50k whereas the pharmacy 9students) will earn about 75k. This is pre-reg and 2 years working as band 6 pharmacist in hospital.

-Estimated difference in these early years between hospital wage(AVG:[34-25]=£30k) and community pay(40k???) is about £10k (about 6-7k after tax). easily made up with between 40-45 full-day Saturdays in a year, although technically you would have more money in the bank as the tax would have to be paid later.

[johnep]

Start your year from May 1st and will be best part of two years before you pay tax.
johnep

[bleepholder]

Do pre-reg in hospital, work a couple of years in hospital and with a bit of moving around (transfering) you could quite easily land yourself in a senior band 7 job, by year 3. If you don't like it you've got experience in retail to look to move to this sector.

sounds reasonable to me...and being in the right place at the right time no reason why you coulnd't get band 8a by the end of year 3 of qualification...