Community pharmacy employers should take advantage of the high number of pharmacy graduates and increasingly competitive jobs market to help boost quality in the sector, C+D Senators have suggested. Employers could now choose from the "cream of the crop" as an increasing number of pharmacy graduates looked to enter the jobs market, they said at the C+D Senate on July 6.

"Every employer has a responsibility to make sure they get the absolute cream of the crop working for them" Jay Badenhorst, Whitworth Chemists

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The trend could help employers deliver a better quality service to patients, said Whitworth Chemists superintendent pharmacist Jay Badenhorst. "Every employer has a responsibility to make sure they get the absolute cream of the crop working for them," he told the Senate. "In the past, I don't think employers had the choice." "It's also probably a warning to pharmacists that [jobs] are not just going to come your way anymore – if you're not sure you're the best, then watch out," Mr Badenhorst added.

The comments were echoed by Roshni Simmonds, a pharmacist at Rowlands Pharmacy, Portsmouth. Ms Simmonds highlighted the NHS desire for quality and suggested pharmacy could follow suit.

"The NHS is so cut-throat with who it's keeping and who it's not, so community pharmacy could be a little more cut-throat and a little less soft," she suggested.

And new graduates were keen to provide a high quality patient service, Ms Simmonds added. "Pharmacists [graduating] now are already in the mindset that they don't want to just be behind a labelling machine when they leave university," she argued. But employers must also take responsibility for delivering a high quality service to patients, stressed Joseph Bush, a lecturer at Aston Pharmacy School, citing targets as one potential barrier. "It may not be appropriate to blame pharmacists for not meeting quality standards because they may get all sorts of flack from their employers to meet targets," he told the Senate. The comments followed the PDA Union's warning earlier this year that the pharmacy job market was "sitting on a time bomb", as the number of graduates threatened to outstrip demand for pharmacists.