which? report today slates pharmacy staff. By proxy this damages pharmacy as a profession and pharmacists as professionals.
I am deeply worried about the future of our profession, we do nothing to sell oursleves and doctors laugh at us. Community pharmacists- we need to pull our socks up. We're training technicians to do our jobs, and what are we going to do? well- so i was told by a multiple i once worked for- "freeing" us up to give this advice. (er. no- we're round the corner out of earshot doing a waste of time MUR for £27)
The which? report doesnt really make the difference between errors in OTC avice we make as pharmacists which are serious and should be treated as incidents, and general assistants not selling as per WWHAM or maybe never having been trained in the first place. We are responsible for our staff while we are on duty and the advice they give, but when youre not in a regular store you have no idea what you are walking into.
I bet everyone on here has a story about understaffing and non trained staff on the counter. Ignoring this is DAMAGING our future. If we cant get a positive spin soon, GPs and nurses will be quite happy to do our jobs for us, they'll agree a better renumeration anyway and we'll be left with nothing!! What implications this has for us when we try and ask for more responsiible roles and being let out of the pharmacy to go on visits?
next time the assistant asks you to speak to the customer for something simple when you have a zillion scripts waiting, and the area manager on the phone barking about targets, think- that customer is your priority-we've buried our heads juggling demands set to us and the result has been this damaging report!!
(phew- i feel a little better now!
)
I am deeply worried about the future of our profession, we do nothing to sell oursleves and doctors laugh at us. Community pharmacists- we need to pull our socks up. We're training technicians to do our jobs, and what are we going to do? well- so i was told by a multiple i once worked for- "freeing" us up to give this advice. (er. no- we're round the corner out of earshot doing a waste of time MUR for £27)
The which? report doesnt really make the difference between errors in OTC avice we make as pharmacists which are serious and should be treated as incidents, and general assistants not selling as per WWHAM or maybe never having been trained in the first place. We are responsible for our staff while we are on duty and the advice they give, but when youre not in a regular store you have no idea what you are walking into.
I bet everyone on here has a story about understaffing and non trained staff on the counter. Ignoring this is DAMAGING our future. If we cant get a positive spin soon, GPs and nurses will be quite happy to do our jobs for us, they'll agree a better renumeration anyway and we'll be left with nothing!! What implications this has for us when we try and ask for more responsiible roles and being let out of the pharmacy to go on visits?
next time the assistant asks you to speak to the customer for something simple when you have a zillion scripts waiting, and the area manager on the phone barking about targets, think- that customer is your priority-we've buried our heads juggling demands set to us and the result has been this damaging report!!
(phew- i feel a little better now!

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