How can pharmacy solve the jobs crisis?

It's a dilema that I often struggle with personally when I get asked if I would go back to university to do Pharmacy. While I'd relish the learning and the challenge, I have to think of the long-term.

It's a fair amount of time invested for what is an uncertain return at the moment. However, pharmacy has a whole is changing. For better or worse, that's a whole discussion right there and while it is in this influx, like Ms Richardson has said ~ it's complicated.

Simple math tells you that we are heading for a disaster due to the over supply of pharmacists. There will not be enough jobs for everyone unless something is done now as a matter of urgency. Either caps at universities should be introduces or more roles should be pushed for so that there will be enough jobs to cater for all.

Why was this not nipped in the bud before? With inccreasing pharmacy schools why didn't alarm bells ring to warn that the over supply of pharmacists will make it harder to get a job as there may not be enough vacancies for all? That is what everyone is asking right now, just how was this situation allowed to happen in the first place? Wasn't it obvious that we were heading for oversupply and that control of student numbers should have been done back then?

We must hope that something is done very soon. Either caps for pharmacy university places or perhaps more roles created. The BPSA have released a discussion paper urging action. The RPS,PDA,Univeristy council heads for pharmacy have a responsibility to ensure that oversupply does destroy the profession and destroy morale, which will in turn ruin the profession. Nobody wants to study for 5 years (full time intensely at that) and have £36000 debt and then have no job to go to. That will be the ultimate disaster and depression for students. So it is therefore important that action is taken now.

There will be alot of angry pharmacy graduats who will demand answers if this potential oversupply occurs. Will they be given back their £36000 in order to ease the sadness if they do struggle to get a job so that they can use that money to start a business? I think not! Everybody is eagerly waiting for news from the RPS,PDA etc in hope that something is done to manage numbers. The 5 year integrated (MPC) degree is a good step but that is a few years away and in the meantime a 8-9 year lag of over supply could occur which could damage the job market for 8-9 years and lead to mass over saturation(by that time MORALE will be ruinesd and it could be too late) - nobody wants to see that- but lack of action now will mean that it could be too late to claw back the situation.

So everybody is eagerly waiting for news on what is going to be done.

A typing error in my previous post. It was meant to read:

The RPS,PDA,Univeristy council heads for pharmacy have a responsibility to ensure that oversupply does NOT destroy the profession and destroy morale

And will anyone address the issue of overseas Pharmacists without being accused of being racist . Surely if we are looking at reducing the number of Pharmacy student places in the UK we should reduce the number of overseas Pharmacists registering in the UK.

There are three reasons for oversupply, the first is free movement of EU professionals where there are 400,000 registered EU pharmacists with over 1,100 per year moving to work in the UK. The second is the opening of new schools of pharmacy which is producing a possible 2% increase of pharmacists. The third is the raising of the retirement age from 60 to 65 and then to 67 this may result in less jobs being available for the newly qualified as older pharmacists continue to work longer.
Reducing UK schools of pharmacy alone will not solve the problem.

Can you clarify.....Overseas? or EU Pharmacists or Outside EU Pharmacists?
Cos you need to check the figures properly,like Dorothy Drury has rightly written!

There doesn't seem to be an oversupply where I am. I'm working extra hours which I don't really want. I'm approaching retirement age and would like to cut down but fear I'll be working more hours than I want for years to come. There has been recruitment from the EU simply because there is a shortage of pharmacists in some parts of Britain

Which part of UK u live darling I am moving there Tomm Coz where I live they are offering pharmacist whooping 18 pounds an hour

It's EU pharmacist only Coz non EU can't move into UK that freely simplesssss

Trust me mate they don't care we have to do something ourself..... It does not bother them.... It's not there headache

sure need to check the figures. being a non EU overseas pharmacist myself the number of us that graduated from Sunderland in the year 1994 was about 20, a mere drop in the ocean.

At last, recognition that there are too many schools of pharmacy and too many pharmacy graduates from the NHS and RPS.

Incoming EU pharmacists, higher retirement age, reducing numbers of PCT pharmacists, no more 100 hour openings - the situation will continue to worsen.

The only beneficiaries of this are employers who can drive down wages as pharmacists recognise increasing competition for jobs and threaten pharmacists unable to meet increasingly unachievable targets.

Can we rely on the RPS to act and support their members? I very much doubt it - they have done nothing in the last 3-4 years about this.

As a current undergrad I'm pretty annoyed at this situation. I chose Pharmacy because, amongst other things, job prospects were excellent, now I'm not so sure. There was no mention of any of this when I was applying 2 years ago. I have been fortunate enough to get summer placements with a multiple, and live in an area with a shortage, but for some of my coursemates the outlook perhaps isn't so good.

And Lincoln University wants to open another Pharmacy department?!?!

Can't say I have such figures to hand but I would have thought overall numbers are not massive compared with free movement of pharmacists within EU and the increasing numbers of student places here.

How can any new schools of pharmacy be justified from this point on ?

The economic situation has postponed retirement plans for some . There are probably some several thousand pharmacists approaching 60 and just over who can't afford to with various commitments such as helping children through university etc

Perhaps in another time they could have done so and the increased numbers would have been absorbed.