In recent years representatives of different pharmaceutical interests have expressed concern over shortages in labour resources in community and hospital pharmacy. This concern has stimulated debate in Royal Pharmaceutical Society Council meetings and in the correspondence columns of the Pharmaceutical Journal. The Council agreed that urgent consideration should be given to the issue of perceived or predicted workforce shortages and whether the difficulties lay in retention and more efficient utilisation of pharmacist resources rather than in recruitment. It was acknowledged that not enough was known about pharmacists who work less than full-time. Proposals to expand the role of the Council's Manpower Committee to cover 'enhanced monitoring, profiling of sub-populations of pharmacists and future pharmacists, and scenario planning'¹, were approved in June 1999.

During 1995-7, a postgraduate research project funded by the Pharmacy Practice Research Enterprise Scheme, was undertaken to determine the extent and range of part-time work amongst community pharmacists: to explore through a quantitative survey and qualitative interviews the complexities of part-timers' work patterns and the strategies they employ to accommodate their part-time work within the structure of their lives. The research also considered the effect that part-time work has had, or is likely to have, on their careers. But first, the records most often used to quantify the size, pattern and distribution of the labour market in pharmacy in Britain, were examined. These are the 16 Surveys of Pharmacists published by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society since 1963. They also provide estimates of the extent of employment (whether full-time, part-time or not in employment) of pharmacists in different categories of occupation and present a valuable perspective on quantitative changes over time.

However, part-time work is covered by these surveys only insofar as they give a broad picture of trends in extent of working hours and the relation of this to gender and age groups of pharmacists. This present research found that almost 30% of registered pharmacists worked part- time in community pharmacy, and they therefore constitute a substantial group, whose behaviour, beliefs and attitudes have been the subject of very little previous study. This paper reviews some of the sources used to prepare an historical perspective on part-time work in pharmacy, and discusses the significance and the limitations of using such basic demographic data as a resource for qualitative research into workforce issues.

References

1. Royal Pharmaceutical Society. June Council Meeting. Pharm J. 1999; 262: 834.