Survey results confirm difficulty recruiting pharmacy staff

While the Governments voluntary bonding scheme failed to include pharmacists in its recent widening, the results of the Pharmacy Guild of New Zealands annual Remuneration Survey have found that recruiting professional pharmacy staff has become more difficult, with 24% of pharmacies trying to recruit saying they had difficulty. This figure is up from 15% in 2011.

The Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand (the Guild) supported the Pharmacy Councils submission in 2009 to widen the voluntary bonding scheme to include pharmacists and pre-registration pharmacists. The Guild believes including pharmacists and pre-registration pharmacists in the voluntary bonding scheme would help alleviate staff shortages in rural pharmacy and improve access to health care for rural populations. The primary reason given by respondents for the difficulty recruiting pharmacists and technicians was because the pharmacy was located in a rural area.

The Remuneration Survey was conducted in August and September, primarily via an online survey tool, and summarises information on 1,344 positions from 241 pharmacies. Other interesting findings from the Survey:

- The median number of prescription items is just under 77,000 - up from 70,000 in 2011. It is highest in provincial city pharmacies and lowest in rural pharmacies.

- The median pharmacy is open for 49 hours a week, ranging from 46 hours in rural areas, to 52 hours in Wellington.

- The median pharmacy has one pharmacy manager, two pharmacists, one retail manager, two technicians and two pharmacy assistants.

- The most common non-English language spoken by pharmacy staff is Mandarin (23%).

- Christchurch pharmacies have had the highest proportion of staff vacancies.

Remuneration movements this year in the community pharmacy sector have been mixed. The median for most pharmacist roles has stayed level for three years, while locum pharmacist rates have significantly increased this year. Retail rates have varied with the median pay for senior assistants decreasing, but increasing for junior assistants.

Information relating to remuneration is confidential and the Survey is only available as a hard copy for our members.

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Survey results confirm difficulty recruiting pharmacy staff