Boots has come under fire recently following accusations made by the Guardian that the multiple pressures its pharmacists to carry out unnecessary MURs for profit  – a claim Boots has refuted. 

But what's it actually like to work for the multiple? And how does it feel to work for a company that receives so much criticism from other pharmacists? C+D reader and Boots pharmacist Sharon Povey shares her story.

I work for Boots as a store-based pharmacist, and like many I have read the media reports and comments generated. I don't feel I have much to add that hasn't been said already, except to comment on how a minority of pharmacists view those of us who work for Boots.

I ended up with Boots by chance through a series of mergers. I didn't choose to work for them and actually never wanted to, but to my surprise a change of ownership made no difference to my work life.

But I have found that, now that my payslip has a different company name on it, some pharmacists view me differently. Have I deskilled? No. Have I become dishonest? No. Do I care less for my patients than I used to? No.

We all need to work, and if no one worked for Boots there'd be a huge employement crisis – and a patient crisis – with closed pharmacies.

So if a Boots pharmacist calls you to see if you have a split pack of an item in short supply to meet a patient need, please remember the patient and ignore that the healthcare professional calling you works for a company that you may not want to work for yourself.

I'm constantly surprised by the attitude of some pharmacists as soon as I say I'm from Boots. I even had one customer come to me to ask if we had an item that another pharmacy owed them, and when I said I did have some and called the other pharmacy to offer them the stock, they refused to take it from me. Where is the patient care there?

In the end the patient got a new script so that I could issue the item and they became a regular at my pharmacy (as they were rather appalled that the other pharmacist was happy to leave him with no medication for three weeks for no good reason).

So please remember that those of us who work for Boots are pharmacists first, Boots employees second. We trained at the same universities as everyone else, and have the same patient focus as everyone else. We work hard for our customers the same as every pharmacist does. Don't allow your feelings for the company to cloud your judgement of the individuals within it.

This article was originally posted as a comment underneath this story.

Have the Boots MUR allegations changed your view of the multiple?

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