66% of community pharmacists have admitted to experiencing forms of abuse from the public, being over worked, burnt out, suffering from poor mental health and not getting sufficient breaks and protected time for learning as found by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s (RPS) workforce wellbeing survey.
The community pharmacy sector had the highest rates of abuse than any other pharmacy sector at shocking 69% compared to an average of 44% in other areas.
RPS ran the wellbeing survey in conjunction with the charity Pharmacist Support.
Respondents cited inadequate staffing (70%), lack of work/life balance (53%), lack of protected learning time (48%) and lack of colleague/senior support (47%) as reasons for poor mental health and wellbeing.
RPS have commented that the government urgently need to tackle the improvement of the pharmacy sector before the teams burnout and the sector is on its knees. Pharmacy is continued to be used to take pressure off the NHS (without any further funding or support) but it will only be time before it cannot support itself never mind the NHS and the current crisis it is in. In order for pharmacy to play a role in supporting the NHS crisis, recruitment and retention of pharmacists and pharmacy staff is important. There needs to be a long-term investment and strategy from both the employers and the government to make it a more appealing workplace. The charity Pharmacist Support’s chief executive commented that it finds the results of the survey ‘disturbing’. Furthermore the results correlate with the first hand stories she has heard from pharmacists who have approached the charity for help. There has been a huge increase over the past year of people reaching out, seeking for help with their mental health which is no surprise due to the increased pressures financially and workload wise in the pharmacy sector. Something needs to change!