I work for one of the multiples and while workplace pressures have been getting progressively worse every year, this financial year I have never felt so worried for my job as I do now.
 
Yesterday I had a meeting with my area manager, and although my store was around mid-table in [the league table for] this particular area, I felt very threatened by the way I was spoken to.
 
I was told I could be investigated (though for what I don't know) if things didn't improve. I was also told that in a few months I will have three options: to resign, change [in order to] get absolutely everything done, or be investigated. This has never happened before, I haven't had any written warnings or cautions, and yet this is how I am being spoken to.
 
If I had my time again, I wouldn't ever think about doing pharmacy again. The profession has become way too pressurised by the multiples, as we have seen by the allegations of falsified medicines use reviews (MURs) in both Boots and Lloyds.

However, the regulator (in whom I have lost all faith in) does nothing about it. There have been stories going back years of this type of thing, but the regulator does nothing against the multiples – even though the person committing the fraudulent MURs has nothing to gain financially from it. 
 
I would like to advise everyone thinking of studying pharmacy and going into the area to think again and do something else. And also, if you are a pharmacist in community, then please join the Pharmacists Defence Association. They seem to be the only organisation that will help pharmacists against the greedy multiples. 
 
This threatening and pressurising behaviour doesn't just happen with one or two people, I have been told it is a company-wide problem, and a lot of pharmacists I have spoken to say the same thing. 
 
At the moment, I am thinking about leaving the pharmacy profession and doing something else. I definitely do not want to work for a multiple that treats its pharmacists like this. 

Read other pharmacists stories of pressure here.