Recruiting a Pharmacist – How Medacy can help.

Recruiting a Pharmacist can be challenging. Until you work with a particular profession, it’s sometimes easy to assume that all the individual professionals with that profession are the same. Pharmacy and Pharmacists are a perfect example of that. As a non-pharmacy expert, it would be easy to assume that all pharmacists are the same.  The reality is that within the profession of pharmacy, there are some real niche skills sets..

Some scenarios:

I’m an independent pharmacy owner, and I’m looking for a new pharmacy manager to run my pharmacy and maximise the profits.

What am I looking for? I need a pharmacist who can manage a business and importantly understand where and when to buy my medication to maximise profits. They need to do this without the infrastructure of a large “multiple” like Boots or Lloyds, and they probably need to work closely with the business owner. 30 years ago, around 70% of pharmacists would have had experience working for independents and would be involved in purchasing from various wholesalers and Reps to get the best deals. I would think this figure is closer to 5% in 2021.

I’m a Clinical Director of a PCN, and I want to recruit a pharmacist to support my practices using the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS)

What am I looking for? I have funding as part of the ARRS scheme funded by NHS England to recruit a pharmacist/s. I need someone who can either hit the ground running and deliver beneficial change to practice straight away or invest in less experienced pharmacists and put them through the Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway.

Whether I go for an experienced IP Pharmacist or not, I need a pharmacist whose clinical competence and personal confidence to flourish is Primary Care. Not all pharmacists have these skills. To ensure that you recruit wEll for a PCN Pharmacist role, an in-depth understanding of the future role is essential.

I’m a Private Sector provider of Health Services within Secure establishments, and I need to recruit a new pharmacy manager.

It goes without saying that a clean criminal record is important, but prison pharmacy is a real specialist role. A successful hire needs to identify a pharmacist who can work as part of a multi-disciplinary team. They need to be clinically competent as they will be part of a team supporting people who are either physically or mentally acutely unwell. They need to have the nerve to deliver healthcare in a challenging environment. This is a fantastic opportunity, but it will only appeal to a small percentage of the pharmacist workforce.

So recruiting a pharmacist is challenging. They are not all the same. You need to identify the right pharmacist with the right skill-set for each position, and the risks of a poor hire are high.

So how can you minimise the risks?

Medacy offers a unique, bespoke recruitment service for roles like the ones above.  Medacy has a vast amount of experience working with Independent Pharmacies, Primary Care Networks, and secure environments, and we are here to help.

Call Shaun 0n 07971187921 or hop on the webchat function to talk to a team member straight away.