The pharmacy sector is facing extensive challenges in terms of pay, excessive workload and pressure, inflexible working hours, and a lack of opportunities for pharmacists' career progression. These challenges are complex for both staff and employers.
"The greatest workforce crisis in the NHS and social care sector's history"
It is in response to these challenges that the Health and Social Care Committee called for the government to produce a comprehensive strategy for the pharmacy workforce to tackle “the greatest workforce crisis in history” in terms of the NHS and the social care sector.
The pharmacy workforce can be utilised better, which would “optimise workloads” across primary care as well as reduce pressure on other parts of the health system, it wrote in a report published recently. If workloads were optimised and the pressures reduced on pharmacy teams this would certainly boost morale and encourage employee retention within the industry.
Pharmacist career development
The workforce plan should ensure that all pharmacists can access the right training, with “clear structures for professional career development” built in. The government has “shown a marked reluctance to act decisively” in the face of NHS staffing shortages, the committee wrote.
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Independent prescribing impact on workforce
The pharmacy workforce plan should take into consideration that all newly qualified pharmacists will be independent prescribers by 2027, the committee wrote.
These pharmacists should be given protected learning time, the right amount of supervision and opportunities to develop their careers, it said.
Anecdotal evidence was that independent prescribing pharmacists “currently lack opportunities” to use their skills in community pharmacy, which can sometimes lead to these pharmacists leaving the sector in favour of a role that “allows them to use their enhanced skills”, according to the report.
"Optimise the workload" - Ravi Sharma
The committee referred to conversations it has had with Ravi Sharma, director for England at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, who said the growing number of pharmacist independent prescribers could decrease the burden on the NHS and “optimise the workload that healthcare staff can experience”.
Mr Sharma – who gave evidence on pharmacy workforce issues to the Health and Social Care Select Committee in May – said that the report "underlines the urgent need" for a "comprehensive" health and social care workforce plan.
“Pharmacy teams will play a key role in the NHS recovery, but with continued pressures on staff we need support for the workforce so they can keep looking after patients," he said, urging the government to pay heed to the report's recommendations.
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