Pharmacists are working long hours and facing heavy workloads because their employers are failing to fill vacant posts within their teams, charity Pharmacist Support has warned.  

Pharmacists reported that MURs and customer satisfaction surveys were also resulting in a heavy workload, Pharmacy Support charity manager Diane Leicester said. Locums were finding it difficult to secure work and faced falling rates, she added.

Ms Leicester's comments came in response to University of Manchester research released last month that revealed community pharmacists have a poorer work-life balance than hospital, industry or primary care pharmacists.

"[Contractors] tend to take on more work ourselves rather than delegate because staff is the biggest overhead there is" Fin McCaul, IPF

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Independent Pharmacy Federation chair Fin McCaul agreed that financial constraints within community pharmacy meant employers were taking the "easy route" by not replacing their staff. "I think this has been going on for quite a while now, certainly with independents – we tend to take on more work ourselves rather than delegate because staff is the biggest overhead there is," he told C+D. "While staff are a huge investment, sometimes it's difficult to see that."

Pharmacists posting on the C+D website also raised concerns about their workload. A pharmacist posting under the name How High? said: "We have ACTs but unfortunately due to staff cutbacks we have nobody to actually dispense, so we use the ACTs as expensive dispensers."

Pharmacist Reeyah H posted: "We are barely surviving as it is. We are desperate for staff. I don't even go to the toilet most days and arrive home shattered and in an awful mood."

Four in 10 respondents to the University of Manchester survey of 12,364 pharmacists across the profession said they usually worked long hours. More than a quarter said there wasn't much time to socialise, relax with their partners or see family during the week, according to the research published in the International Journal of Pharmacy Practice.