Executive summary

The demand for pharmacy services

  • There is evidence that the demand for pharmacy services depends on the size and composition of the population therefore the projected increase in the size and change in the composition of Scotland’s population is likely to increase the demand for pharmacy services.
  • There is evidence that the demand for pharmacy services depends on socioeconomic deprivation therefore the demand for pharmacy services is likely to vary within and between NHS boards according to variation in socioeconomic deprivation.
  • The demand for pharmacists depends on public sector policy objectives such as the demand for pharmacists to work in GP practices.

Training market information

  • The ratio of applications to acceptances for four-year MPharm courses in Scotland seems to have been decreasing since 2012.
  • The number of first-year students on MPharm programmes in Scotland decreased from 290 in 2011-12 to 250 in 2015-16. This may be partly due to a decrease in overseas student intake by the University of Strathclyde.
  • The percentage of first-year Scottish-domiciled MPharm students at RGU increased each year between 2013-14 and 2015-16 and the percentage of first-year Scottish-domiciled MPharm students at Strathclyde decreased each year between 2013-14 and 2015-16.
  • The probability of completing the programme in Scotland was over 0.75 within four years and over 0.85 within six years.
  • The latest PRPS survey found that most students qualified from a school of pharmacy in Scotland and more than 80% planned to remain in Scotland;
  • 112 pharmacists qualified from an independent prescribing course in 2016 compared to 58 in 2015; and
  • There were 43 pharmacy technicians in training in the managed sector in 2017.

Labour market information

  • The 2017 NHSScotland staff and vacancy survey (covering Acute, Central, Mental Health and Primary Care) showed a 3.36% increase in the number of WTE staff compared to 2016.
  • The number of WTE pharmacists was 1242.57 and the number of WTE pharmacist vacancies was 84.
  • Since the last Staff and Vacancy survey, WTE numbers increased for Pharmacists, Pharmacy Technicians and Support Staff. The vacancy rates for Pharmacy Technicians and Support Staff also increased slightly.
  • There was variation in the number of WTE staff per capita between NHS boards but the variation is similar between surveys.
  • The second Scottish Community Pharmacy Workforce Survey was undertaken in February 2018 and found that there are an estimated 1484.86 pharmacists working in the Community sector and 76.34 WTE pharmacist vacancies.
  • There were no pharmacy occupations on the latest shortage occupation list.
  • Between 2011 and 2017 median gross hourly pay for pharmacists in Scotland increased at about the same rate as the UK and since 2014 median gross hourly pay of pharmacy technicians and dispensing assistants in Scotland increased relative to the UK.


1 Introduction

In April 2009 Audit Scotland found that workforce planning for pharmacy staff was not well developed and recommended that the SG should work with NES, NHS NSS and NHS boards to develop national pharmacy workforce planning information to support NHS boards in taking forward workforce plans and workforce development. In response to this recommendation the SG set up a Pharmacy Action Plan Steering Group and created a Pharmacy Workforce Planning Project, which agreed that NES and NHS NSS would work together to analyse pharmacy workforce data to inform the Pharmacy Action Plan Steering Group. Following a review of pharmaceutical care in Scotland the SG published a vision and action plan, which recommended that

NES, working with key stakeholders such as the Schools of Pharmacy and the NHS boards, should be commissioned to undertake data collection and trend analysis to lead to better supply and demand forecasting, and capacity planning for the pharmacy workforce.

2 The demand for pharmacy services

Audit Scotland reported that the demand for pharmacy services was a function of the size and composition of the population and the level of socioeconomic deprivation. The following sections report the latest population projections for Scotland and the spatial distribution of socioeconomic deprivation in Scotland.

2.1 Population projections

Audit Scotland reported that the demand for pharmacy services was a function of the size and, because the number of medicines people are prescribed rises after age 50, the age distribution of the population. Therefore the expected future demand for pharmacy services depends on the population projections for Scotland.

Between 2017 and 2026 Scotland’s population is projected to increase by 2.82% and the number of people aged 50 and over is projected to increase by 8.13%.

2.2 The distribution of community pharmacies by SIMD

Audit Scotland reported that the demand for pharmacy services were a function of the level of socioeconomic deprivation. The following chart and map show this relationship in two ways by linking the the postcodes of community pharmacies published by PSD of NHS NSS to NHS NSS SIMD data. The chart reports the number of pharmacy practices in September 2017 by SIMD decile and the map shows the location of pharmacy practices by SIMD rank.

SIMD is a relative measure of deprivation that ranks each of the 6,976 Data Zones in Scotland from most deprived to least deprived.

There seems to be a positive relationship between the SIMD decile and the number of community pharmacies: there were more community pharmacies in SIMD decile 1, the most deprived decile, compared to SIMD decile 10, the least deprived decile.

The map shows the location of each practice in Scotland and the SIMD 2016 rank of each Data Zone.