Introduction and data

This paper reports results from the 2020 Community Pharmacy Survey undertaken by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) in conjunction with Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS). Independent community pharmacies and pharmacies in the Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) were asked to supply information on staff and vacancies for the week commencing 21 September 2020.

The survey gathered information on staff in post and vacancies, reported as both Headcount (HC) and number of hours employed. Whole Time Equivalent (WTE) was estimated by dividing the hours employed by a standard 40-hour full-time working week.

Information was gathered about the following roles:

  • Pharmacists including GPhC Provisionally Registered Pharmacists, Pre-registration Trainee Pharmacists, Locum Pharmacists and Central staff Pharmacists
  • Pharmacy Technicians including Pharmacy Technicians with accuracy checking, Pre-registration Trainee Pharmacy Technicians and Central staff Pharmacy Technicians
  • Dispensing assistants including Dispensing Assistants with accuracy checking, Trainee Dispensing Assistants and Central Staff Dispensing Assistants
  • Medicines Counter Assistants, including Trainee Medicines Counter Assistants and Central Staff Medicines Counter Assistants
  • Locum staff including Locum Pharmacists and Locum Pharmacy Technicians
  • Relief staff including Pharmacists, Provisionally Registered Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians and Pharmacy Technicians with accuracy checking. This is the first year in which data on relief staff data have been captured separately. Numbers of relief staff are reported separately in this report but are also included in the relevant role totals throughout, e.g. the total number of Pharmacists includes relief Pharmacists.
  • Independent prescribers (IPs) including locum Pharmacist IPs

Results

Response rates

The response rate was 99%.

According to data from National Services Scotland (May 2020) there are 1256 Community Pharmacy Contractor codes in Scotland. Of these, CCA pharmacies account for 604 (48.1%) and non-CCA pharmacies account for 652 (51.9%).

The number of Community Pharmacy contractors has remained relatively stable since the first Community Pharmacy survey data was reported in 2016.


Composition of the workforce

Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians and Support Staff

N.B. Roles included: Pharmacist, GPhC Provisionally Registered Pharmacist, Pharmacy Technician, Pharmacy Technician with Accuracy Checking, Dispensing Assistant, Dispensing Assistant with Accuracy Checking, Medicines Counter Assistant. Also includes relief staff numbers. Excludes trainees, locums and central staff. Support staff are Dispensing Assistants and Medicines Counter Assistants/Healthcare Assistants/Healthcare Partners.

Data on Pharmacists or Pharmacy Technicians who temporarily returned to practice because of COVID-19 were not specifically captured in the survey. However, these numbers are expected to be small based on data from the NES Covid Accelerated Recruitment Portal.

Differences between Headcount and Whole Time Equivalent numbers indicate the levels of part-time working.

Results are also presented by Region:

  • North Region, which consists of NHS Shetland, NHS Orkney, NHS Western Isles, NHS Highland, NHS Grampian, and NHS Tayside
  • East Region, which consists of NHS Lothian, NHS Fife, and NHS Borders
  • West Region, which consists of NHS GG&C, NHS Forth Valley, NHS Dumfries & Galloway, NHS Ayrshire & Arran, and NHS Lanarkshire


National

A comparison of Headcount and Whole Time Equivalent indicates a higher degree of part-time working among support staff.

Regional

Board


Relief staff

The survey this year gathered data on relief staff in the roles of Employed Pharmacist (including GPhC Provisionally Registered) and Pharmacy Technician (including Pharmacy Technicians with accuracy checking qualification).

Provisionally Registered Pharmacist was a new role in 2020 due to COVID-19 delaying the GPhC registration exam. These Pharmacists were more likely to be employed in a relief role, possibly resulting in a slight increase in relief staff numbers and a slight decrease in Employed Pharmacist numbers compared to what would be expected in a normal year.

Headcount figures for CCA pharmacies were not available at board level.

Below we present Headcount and estimated WTE at National Level, and WTE at Board level for the four relief staff roles.

Relief staff were predominantly Pharmacists.



All roles

The following charts and tables present the data for all roles covered in the survey, including locums, trainees and central staff where relevant. Medicines Counter Assistants, Healthcare Assistants, and Healthcare Partners are jointly referred to as Medicines Counter Assistants. Relief staff and Independent Prescribers are reported separately here but are included in other totals elsewhere in this report, so the figures in the following table should not be summed.

Pharmacists account for 16.9% of the overall WTE. The largest staff group is Dispensing Assistants which accounts for 28.9% of the overall WTE.

The distribution of roles is broadly similar between CCA and Non-CCA contractors. However, a greater number of Pharmacy Support Staff are employed by CCA contractors and more Central Pharmacy Staff employed by non CCA contractors compared to CCA contractors – though many CCA functions will be carried out by staff at UK head offices who are not included in these Scotland-only data.

All roles (table)

All roles (chart)

By employer (chart)


Workforce since 2016

The following chart presents data for the roles common to all surveys since 2016.

Numbers of WTE Pharmacists have decreased steadily since 2016. Possible reasons for this include the displacement of Pharmacists from Community Pharmacy to new NHS Primary Care roles, and an increase in Community Pharmacists leaving the profession. In addition, the issue of recruiting Pharmacists to the more remote and rural health Boards is borne out in the higher vacancy rates seen in these Boards.

There has also been an overall reduction in the number of WTE Pharmacy Technicians working in the Community sector since 2016 and a reduction in the number of Trainee Pharmacy Technicians since 2018. This may be due to a number of Pharmacy Technicians moving to NHS Primary Care and employers recruiting more Dispensing Assistants to fulfill certain functions of this role. Numbers of Dispensing Assistants working in the Community sector have increased over the same period.


Staff and Vacancies by Role

The following sections present Headcount, WTE and vacancy rates (%) for each role group and role, nationally and at Board level. Vacancy rate was calculated as WTE vacancies divided by establishment WTE, which was taken to be the sum of WTE and WTE vacancies.

We also present the number of a given role per 10,000 people in each Board. A national benchmark is shown on the charts as a dashed line and was calculated by summing the individual Board populations. Board populations are based on National Records for Scotland’s mid-2019 population estimates.

Overall national headcount and WTE numbers for Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians and Support Staff (excluding locums, trainees and central staff) can be found above in Composition of the Workforce - National.


All roles

The following table presents a comparison of national workforce measures between 2019 and 2020. N.B. Data on several roles was not collected in 2019.



Pharmacists

Staff and Vacancies Table

WTE Chart

WTE per 10,000


Locum Pharmacists

Staff and Vacancies Table

WTE Chart

WTE per 10,000


Pharmacy Technicians

Staff and Vacancies Table

WTE Chart

WTE per 10,000


Dispensing Assistants

Staff and Vacancies Table

WTE Chart

WTE per 10,000


Medicines Counter Assistants

Staff and Vacancies Table

WTE Chart

WTE per 10,000



This survey would not have been possible without the participation of Scottish community pharmacy contractors, the CCA and the Primary Care Community Pharmacy Leads Group. We thank them for their time and effort in providing the relevant data.