Critical staffing pressures in Community Pharmacies hitting patients
Staffing pressures are significantly impacting community pharmacies, adding huge workload pressures for all those who work in them and hampering their ability to help patients and the public, a report from Community Pharmacy England has found.
Pharmacy owners and team members across England paint a vivid picture of the severe consequences caused by staffing shortages, underfunding, and escalating workload pressures in community pharmacies. The main challenges include extreme stress and burnout, affecting both the personal and professional lives of pharmacy staff and ultimately impacting patient care.
Key findings in the Pharmacy Pressures Survey 2024: Staffing and Morale Report include:
Impact on services and patients
- Nearly all pharmacy team members (95%) report that shortages have resulted in increased pressure on staff, and 61% cite increased working hours for staff.
- 86% of team members report that shortages have led to longer patient waiting times, while 62% of pharmacy staff say this has reduced their ability to offer services or advice.
Staff shortages and recruitment challenges
- 70% of pharmacy business owners report staff shortages, with about 1 in 10 forced to close pharmacies temporarily as a result.
- Three-quarters of pharmacy owners report difficulty in hiring permanent staff, and 69% report a shortage of permanent team members.
- During February and March 2024, 711 pharmacy premises were forced to close temporarily due to staff shortages, with each closure lasting an average of 5 hours.
Wellbeing and mental health
- 77% of pharmacy staff report that their work is negatively affecting their mental health and well-being.
- 92% of pharmacy staff say they are not coping well, identifying workload as the primary reason and over half attributing it to patient abuse.
- 45% of pharmacy owners say they are extremely concerned about staff well-being, ranking it third after finances (73%) and medicine supply issues (69%).
Read the Staffing and Morale report
Note: this is one in a series of reports that have been developed from the findings of the 2024 Pharmacy Pressures Survey. Our Medicines Supply Report and Funding and Profitabilty Report generated widespread media coverage earlier this year and we will continue to use the survey’s results to highlight the severe challenges impacting the community pharmacy sector.
Today, the findings of our report appeared exclusively in the Mail Online. We are also sharing the results with a wide range of media publications, MPs, Peers, think tanks, patient groups and other pharmacy advocates. For support with media interviews, please contact: comms.team@cpe.org.uk
Resources for pharmacies
Pharmacy owners and LPCs can help raise awareness of these issues using our new resources: social media assets
Pharmacy owners are also encouraged to make use of Pharmacist Support’s ACTNow wellbeing campaign, to:
- Allow time for wellbeing;
- Consider the needs of others; and
- Take action.
This year’s campaign, which runs from 18th October to 8th November, focuses on driving culture change within the pharmacy profession, with weekly themes such as workplace culture, loneliness, and physical health. Sign up to the ACTNow campaign today to access valuable wellbeing resources.
Community Pharmacy England also remains committed to raising awareness of workforce and wellbeing issues within the sector. Our Four-Point Plan for Community Pharmacy – which we are using in our influencing and public affairs work – calls for a plan to safeguard the pharmacy workforce.
We have also come together with others to commit to collaborative actions to help address pharmacy professionals’ mental health and wellbeing, and continue to support workforce initiatives such as the Community Pharmacy Workforce Development Group (CPWDG) and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) and Pharmacist Support’s Pharmacy Workforce Wellbeing campaign.
Janet Morrison OBE, Chief Executive of Community Pharmacy England, said:
“Community pharmacy staffing pressures are persistent whilst morale is at an all-time low, pushing businesses to the brink and forcing professionals who love working with patients to consider leaving the sector altogether. We are deeply concerned about staff wellbeing and the negative impact that the current pressures are having on both the mental health of the community pharmacy workforce and on patient care. Community pharmacy teams are working non-stop to protect their patients and local communities, but a workforce that is falling over does not support the delivery of quality patient care. If pharmacy staff are overworked, understaffed, harassed and facing significant stress, it negatively affects their ability to meet patient needs.
Our survey findings show there are simply not enough pharmacists or wider pharmacy team members and that this is having a significant impact on their workload and morale. If we want to make full use of the clinical skills of community pharmacists and their teams, we must address these workforce shortages, as well as the critical funding constraints and capacity issues, in the sector.”
Marc Donovan OBE, Community Pharmacy England Committee Member and Chair of the Community Pharmacy Workforce Development Group
“These results highlight the ongoing and significant workforce challenges in community pharmacy. Only by tackling these challenges head-on can we ensure our workforce meets the evolving needs of the NHS and its patients and look forward to a better future for pharmacy teams across England.”
Danielle Hunt, Chief Executive of Pharmacist Support, said:
“As the profession’s independent charity, Pharmacist Support has seen firsthand the significant impact these mounting pressures are having on our pharmacy teams. Over the past few years, we’ve witnessed a substantial increase in demand for our services, delivering over 2,500 counselling sessions since the launch of this service in 2021, with calls to our peer support service, Listening Friends, rising by 74% in the last year alone. With staff wellbeing ranking as one of the top concerns for pharmacy owners, it is clear that immediate action is needed to support the health and sustainability of our pharmacy workforce.”
Visit our Pharmacy Pressures Survey webpage for more information about our survey results and resources.