Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 21 September 2022
125. Deputy Claire Kerrane asked the Minister for Health the number of community pharmacies that are currently operating without a supervising pharmacist; the steps that he has taken to ensure employment of supervising pharmacists in pharmacies across the State; the action that he has taken to support pharmacists in the State; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46174/22]
View answerThank you for your question. As you will be aware the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland (PSI) is the statutory agency who maintains the Registers of Pharmacist and Pharmacies. As of the 19 September 2022, there are 1,981 pharmacies registered with the PSI, and of this number, there are currently 133 pharmacies that have vacancies for supervising pharmacists, or 6.7% of all registered pharmacies.
All such pharmacies are involved in a recruitment process to fill the vacancies that have arisen. The PSI monitors the situation and vacancies on an ongoing basis. It is also worth pointing out that from a patient safety perspective, a pharmacy may only be open if there is a registered pharmacist present on the premises at that time.
The requirement for all pharmacies to nominate a ‘supervising pharmacist’ is provided for in section 28(b) of the Pharmacy Act 2007. This section requires that where the business is carried on by a corporate body “(b ) that, at the premises where the business is carried on or, if there are two or more of those premises, at each of them, there is a registered pharmacist who has a 3 years minimum post-registration experience in whole-time charge of the carrying on of the business there.’ This registered pharmacist is referred to as the supervising pharmacist. All pharmacies are also required to have in place a ‘superintendent pharmacist’, who must also have three years of post-registration experience.
While PSI is not involved in the recruitment of pharmacists, as the pharmacy regulator, they are examining the topic of the pharmacist workforce so that pharmacy can play a full role in the development of an integrated healthcare system. They are aware through their work and through reports from stakeholders, of an increasing risk to the continued availability of a pharmacist workforce, with the concern being that the issue may be exacerbated into the future. In response, the PSI is undertaking a project, due to run across 2022-’23, ‘Emerging Risks to the Future Pharmacy Workforce’. In 2022, this project is set to assess emerging risks to the continued availability of a professional pharmacy workforce within community and hospital pharmacy in Ireland.
This is a complex problem with many contributing factors and multiple stakeholders. Workforce challenges are being experienced in other sectors nationally, and in the pharmacy sector in a range of other countries. However, robust data for Ireland are needed to be able to determine the current landscape, assess future health system needs and understand existing sectoral challenges now and into the future. It will be on the basis of gathering and analysing this up-to-date, robust and relevant data, that recommendations can be proposed to address Ireland’s needs for a pharmacist workforce in the future, as Ireland’s healthcare system evolves, and in the context of Sláintecare implementation.
While the PSI strategic project referenced above will be important to understand the emerging risks, and support workforce planning and pharmacist availability into the future, it is apparent that there is a current acute workforce issue, particularly in relation to community pharmacy. Reports to the PSI indicate that this is being driven in part by an increasing number of pharmacists choosing to work in a locum capacity. This has a knock-on impact on pharmacist vacancies, and potentially on continuity and consistency of service. ?While this is an acute issue, and separate to their strategic workforce project, they have been liaising with other stakeholders, including the Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU), on efforts being taken within the sector to understand and address this current problem. In June of this year, pharmacists were added to the Critical Skills Occupations List by the Minister of State for Business Employment and Retail.
