Locums, get together to refuse cheap jobs!!!

[Tony Schofield]

And this summarises perfectly why, locum rates will not increase and why locums as one unit, will not strike against. Bills need to be paid, and people are in different levels of financial need and comfort.

Tony, I wouldn't say you're being ripped off, if the locum is doing a good job, place is running smoothly and all those extra services you probably offer are being carried out, but you could certainly get someone as good for less money.

Good honest post Zak. I am happy with those who we deal with and am happy to meet their rates.

[culchie82]

You would be amazed how many GPs, Dentists and Lawyers take the same view. They are becoming very custoner focussed and accept that every individual is a profit opportunity. Why do so many GPs agree to write 7 day prescriptions for patients in some tenuous form of "care" who cannot under the DDA regs qualify for a compliance aid? It is because Dr Z down the road will if they won't and every patient on their books is money in the bank.

Those professions provide a service yes. Will they feel the need to butter you up in the process or pander to your every need? Not a chance - that's why they are true professionals.

I have came across Pharmacies where the only thing you are stopping short of doing, is literally wiping the public's arse. This includes ignoring all aspects of Pharmaceutical legislation in a hope to 'keep the customer happy'. If you don't, the Independent down the road will bend the rules anyway.
Would a GP break the law in order to keep a patient happy?

[hibernia]

Which shows that Community Pharmacy isn't a profession, it's a trade - in the same way Tk Max or McDonalds is a trade. Pandering to customers every whim is paramount in Community, the stuff that's in your head is totally irrelevant.

I get your point and agree with it to a large extent but you may have misunderstood my original point.
I have had locums who lost me customers, the sort of customers I consider 'good' becaue they are loyal and courteous, by being lazy, inefficient or downright rude. They haven't lost me any customers who expect to be pandered to because I've got rid of them all by myself - and I don't miss a single one of them although my bank balance does.

I don't expect locums to bend the rules and won't condone breaking the law BUT i do expect a locum to be hard-working, considerate to patients and staff, professional and pleasant and I don't begrudge paying to get that.

[Tony Schofield]

Those professions provide a service yes. Will they feel the need to butter you up in the process or pander to your every need? Not a chance - that's why they are true professionals.

I have came across Pharmacies where the only thing you are stopping short of doing, is literally wiping the public's arse. This includes ignoring all aspects of Pharmaceutical legislation in a hope to 'keep the customer happy'. If you don't, the Independent down the road will bend the rules anyway.
Would a GP break the law in order to keep a patient happy?

I accept that much of your experience has been poor and that some multiples behave corporately very badly and some independents behave even worse. I don't like judging everyone by the standards of the worst but accept you speak as you find. However I most certainly have encountered GPs behaving every bit as badly as you describe and worse. I knew one personally who would prescribe anything required to any patient whether registered with him or not in the local pub. Of course he expected alcohol or money in return. I know others who have pulled appalling stunts when working an out of hours service to "poach" patients from other practices. When they have them they are retained at all costs.

Have you not noticed some GPs have all the "dodgy" patients? The ones who need careful management and not pandering to their whims for sick notes, letters to grant authorities and local councils, diagnoses of work related stress for individuals seeking to cause mischief at industrial tribunals, benzo scripts, dihydrocodeine, champrix (then sold in the pub), viagra (likewise). That isn't just because they have a special interest in deprived communities it is because they pander to patients in a disgraceful way just to keep them on the books. Most areas have at least one or two practices that behave like this and their colleagues despise them.

I am a director of a company that has 2 GPs as co-directors. They have information on all their competing practices and the "dodgy" stuff they have done over the years. Trust me it isn't just pharmacists.

I accept that a locum going into a dodgy practice probably feels less pressure than a young locum pharmacist but please don't believe that GPs stand up to unreasonable demands from stroppy patients when to do so would threaten their commercial interests.

[jzd4rma]

I get your point and agree with it to a large extent but you may have misunderstood my original point.
I have had locums who lost me customers, the sort of customers I consider 'good' becaue they are loyal and courteous, by being lazy, inefficient or downright rude. They haven't lost me any customers who expect to be pandered to because I've got rid of them all by myself - and I don't miss a single one of them although my bank balance does.

I don't expect locums to bend the rules and won't condone breaking the law BUT i do expect a locum to be hard-working, considerate to patients and staff, professional and pleasant and I don't begrudge paying to get that.

I just want to say this I think a lot of resentment about pay is down to the fact that in comparison to doctors and dentist the rate a pharmacist gets is considerably low, but take this in consideration I don't think this can last for long because our economy can no longer pay GP £100k plus not for the job they are doing and most will have to take the severe pay cut like we have!

Me I don't have any problems with my wages, even though it is £14.70 hr which is quite pitiful being an employee pharmacist but I hate the way they treat the pharmacist and how we have little power to do nothing (as I found out from my previous encounter with a psychotic dispenser) this will not change because more pharmacist are being churned out from university and more European pharmacist will seek the British shore so the only way we can help ourselves and this profession is develop our skills and become more specialised and work as a portfolio pharmacist or become an independent.

[johnep]

We could withdraw from the EU and ban any further entrants.
johnep

[jzd4rma]

We could withdraw from the EU and ban any further entrants.
johnep

I don't know it seems a bit drastic about withdrawing from EU, what I do know is we should restrict the number of Universities operating a pharmacy course and allow only reputable institution to provide the course. This would lead to a reduction in surplus of pharmacist and give the pharmacist more power!

[weeneldo]

I've got a better way!

What we do, right, is make pharmacists do as much work as is physically possible and set them all kinds of targets they need to meet to keep their job, while also making them adhere to a ridiculous set of laws and legal requirements that no-one is able to both stick to and keep their pharmacy running.

Then when someone either makes a mistake because of the pressure or breaks one of the rules to keep the pharmacy actually running, we get the GPhC to either strike them off, impose ridiculous conditions on their practice or suspend them for enough time to both bankrupt them and their family and ensure no-one will ever want to employ them again.

This also has the bonus that some pharmacists will leave the profession, some will lose their jobs for not meeting their targets because they only stayed behind in the shop unpaid til 11pm every other night, and some will go mental and bash their own brains out with an AAH tub full of gluten free bread.

In order to ensure the numbers stay low, we should have a week-long course that every student must take before entering the MPharm degree. This involves them checking several nursing homes, doing/checking hundreds of dosette boxes, checking hundreds of surgery scripts and walk-ins and constantly being interrupted by the phone, customers at the counter, someone needing supervised at the methadone counter or any of the million other things that need done. Then at the end we say "if this is what a week is like, imagine repeating this every single week of your life until you either retire or die."

Absolutely nothing can go wrong with this plan.

[jzd4rma]

I've got a better way!

What we do, right, is make pharmacists do as much work as is physically possible and set them all kinds of targets they need to meet to keep their job, while also making them adhere to a ridiculous set of laws and legal requirements that no-one is able to both stick to and keep their pharmacy running.

Then when someone either makes a mistake because of the pressure or breaks one of the rules to keep the pharmacy actually running, we get the GPhC to either strike them off, impose ridiculous conditions on their practice or suspend them for enough time to both bankrupt them and their family and ensure no-one will ever want to employ them again.

This also has the bonus that some pharmacists will leave the profession, some will lose their jobs for not meeting their targets because they only stayed behind in the shop unpaid til 11pm every other night, and some will go mental and bash their own brains out with an AAH tub full of gluten free bread.

In order to ensure the numbers stay low, we should have a week-long course that every student must take before entering the MPharm degree. This involves them checking several nursing homes, doing/checking hundreds of dosette boxes, checking hundreds of surgery scripts and walk-ins and constantly being interrupted by the phone, customers at the counter, someone needing supervised at the methadone counter or any of the million other things that need done. Then at the end we say "if this is what a week is like, imagine repeating this every single week of your life until you either retire or die."

Absolutely nothing can go wrong with this plan.

Don't all of us endure this any ways?

[annie75]

~OMG that is horrible