Community Pharmacy Workforce report: technical document

29 January 2025

1 Overview

Data source names Community pharmacy survey
Update frequency Annual
Census dates Mid-September annually

NES presents results from the Community Pharmacy Survey annually. This publication is undertaken by NHS Education for Scotland (NES) together with:

Information on staff and vacancies is supplied for a specified week mid-September annually.

The Community Pharmacy workforce are not directly employed by the NHS. More information about the NHS directly employed, known as the managed workforce, can be found within the NHS Scotland Workforce publication.

2 Data sources

A survey is sent out to community pharmacists to collect data on staff in post and vacancies, reported as headcount and number of hours in employment.

National Records Scotland mid-year population estimates are used to calculate the national benchmark for the crude rate of job roles per a 10,000 population.

3 Methods

Data are available annually based on survey results received in September.

3.1 Data collection

There are slight variations in the way the data is collected and retrieved from the various respondents:

Measure Independent Independent small group Large group
Collecting body NES CPS CCA
Directly Employed Staff One observation per contractor One observation per contractor One observation per contractor
Central staff N/A National total. Labelled as: Non CCA central National total. Labelled as: CCA Central
Relief staff Hours only National Headcounts (Pharmacists and Technicians only). Labelled as: “Non-CCA National” National Headcounts (Pharmacists and Technicians only). Labelled as: “CCA National”
Locum staff Hours only National total hours. Labelled as: “Non-CCA National” National total hours. Labelled as: “CCA National”

3.2 Roles covered

Information is collected about the following community pharmacist roles if they are employed by independent pharmacies or pharmacies within the CCA:

  • Pharmacists including;
    • Trainee Pharmacists,
    • Locum Pharmacists,
    • Central staff Pharmacists,
    • GPhC Provisionally Registered Pharmacists,
    • Central Staff Pharmacists who were undertaking pharmacist duties, e.g. as a Responsible Pharmacist or 2nd pharmacist due to shortages.
  • 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,
    • Pharmacy Technicians and
    • Pharmacy Technicians with accuracy checking.

Figures for relief staff are reported separately, but they have also been added to figures for corresponding employed staff roles to ensure comparability with previous years’ data. For example, figures for Pharmacists or Pharmacy Technicians will include Relief Pharmacists and Relief Pharmacy Technicians unless stated otherwise.

Note

As Relief staff may work in more than one pharmacy in a given week, it was not possible to collect accurate headcount figures for Relief staff working in Independent pharmacies during the census week. The overall headcount totals reported for Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians must therefore be considered a slight underestimate. Charts and tables indicate if Relief staff is excluded from total Pharmacist and Pharmacy technician numbers.

4 What data are published?

This publication presents data and statistics of the community pharmacy workforce in Scotland for all years the survey has been run (2016 to present). We report on the following data:

  • Response rate by sector and on Health Board level.
  • Headcount and WTE for all specified role groups and role types (e.g. central staff, core staff, Locum staff, Relief staff and Trainee’s) on national and Health Board level.
  • A crude rate for WTE of roles per a 10,000 population for Scotland and each Health Board.
  • Number and WTE of vacancies, additionally a vacancy rate is given for all specified role groups.

4.1 Definitions

4.1.1 Weighting

\[\text{Weighted total} = \frac{\text{Total Headcount or WTE}}{\text{NHS Board response rate}}\]

The number of staff and vacancies are weighted by the Health Board response rates to calculate a total across all groups. Response rates are calculated based on a list of eligible contractors compiled by NES and CPS.

4.1.2 WTE

\[\text{WTE} = \frac{\text{Total hours worked}}{\text{40}}\]

The standard full-time working week for pharmacies is 40 hours.

4.1.3 Vacancy rate

\[\text{Vacancy rate} = \frac{\text{Total vacant WTE}}{\text{Total vacant WTE} + \text{Total employed WTE}}\]

Vacancy rate is calculated as the vacant WTE divided by Establishment WTE, which is the total WTE of employed staff and total WTE of unfilled vacancies.

4.1.4 Workforce per population calculation

\[\text{WTE per 10,000 population} = \frac{\text{Total WTE in Post}}{\text{Total Population}} \times 10000\]

This value is compared to the national benchmark calculated by summing the individual Board populations and shown as a dashed line on the chart. Board populations are based on National Records Scotland mid-2021 population estimates.

5 Data quality

This data is published as non-official statistics. This is due in part to how the data is collected.