A group of pharmacists has come together to try to match gaps in community pharmacy teams across the UK caused by covid-19, with pharmacists and pharmacy staff willing to offer their services.

High street pharmacies are currently the only healthcare hubs in communities where people can still walk in off the street and speak to a healthcare professional face-to-face.

The Scottish government has introduced a series of measures to support pharmacists to help people with minor illnesses and conditions.

However, people with symptoms that might be caused by the coronavirus must stay at home and not visit their local pharmacy.

Community pharmacy managers report that they are under unprecedented pressure and expecting demand to ramp up further. At the same time, they are worrying how long staff teams will be able to keep coming in to work.

The North East pharmacist behind the Pharmacy in Practice news site, Johnathan Laird, and Strathclyde professor Mags Watson have teamed up with seven other pharmacy colleagues to launch an online platform to match volunteers and paid workers with vacancies and temporary gaps in teams. They’re looking for people who can  fill a mix of roles including dispensers, technicians, customer assistants and people who just want to help out.

Pharmacy owners and managers are being asked to post up details for free on the platform of the people they need. Their requests will also be put out on social media and posted on a UK map.

Meanwhile, in its first few days, 96 people have come forward offering help.

The information gathered from people offering their services is also being forwarded to NHS planning teams managing the national response to the Covid-19 outbreak.

Johnathan Laird says it’s clear there are many people wanting to help. He says what is on offer is not an employment agency but a way of matching people with skills to role where they can make a difference:

“This is not ‘the’ answer but it is ‘an’ answer. This is a temporary system with a team of people behind the scenes volunteering their time to help those community pharmacy teams at this most difficult and unprecedented time.”

He says the responsibility to risk assess and engage with the volunteer or worker is still the responsibility of employers, who need to check guidance available through the portal about at-risk groups and who should and should not be working in community pharmacy at this time.

“This is an unprecedented solution to an unprecedented situation. Community pharmacy in the UK will never take a backward step in the face of this most profound level of adversity. Caring for people at the heart of our communities across the UK is simply what we do.

“Help is out there. If you are reading this and you work in a pharmacy that is struggling under the deluge of workload please get on to the website and post some jobs.”

Johnathan Laird adds that the information gathered using the platform will go on to support the NHS's medium to long term resource planning.

 

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