HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE PHARMACIST COOPERATIVE

It’s the end of another year and with it, we want to thank everyone who joined the Pharmacist Cooperative network on Telegram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and follow us on various social network platforms.

Very soon we will move to a new social media platform so that we can better serve our members.

In 2018 we saw a large increase in our membership, our first ever Live networking event was held in Manchester and on the same day we also registered as an official Cooperative, we made our first appearance at the UK’s biggest Pharmacy event of the year, the Pharmacy Show in NEC Birmingham. We also provided flu vaccination training around the UK and will be hosting more exciting training events for pharmacists in the new year.

We have achieved a lot since our humble beginnings in summer 2016 and we hope 2019 will be an even more exciting one.

RATE FIXING

I would like remind all our members that we do not and cannot condone any locum rate or market fixing.

As a professional organisation supporting this great profession, our aims and objectives are to improve the profession by working with other organisations and the government to ensure pharmacists are well represented, remain independent and always patient focused.

We are a non-profit organisation and all our team members are volunteers so the support of every single member is important too.

The admins have done an amazing job of ensuring the groups remain professional and focused. Although, this is not always possible when there are almost 8,000 members, they have done a wonderful job in their own time during their ever busy schedules.

UPDATES

This year we have also updated our terms and conditions to highlight the risks to locums about what they can and can’t discuss as they are considered to be individual businesses.

We need to ensure that as locums, we always remain on the right side of the law.

As much as we would like better remuneration for our work we should also focus on the quality of our work, what we do for our employers and our patients.

As C&D recently reported, a cheap locum might be worth £22/hr but a great locum is priceless so aim to be a an even better locum pharmacist professional in 2019 if you want better remuneration because all employers appreciate a locum that understands their business and treats it like their own.

A NEW YEAR …

In 2019 we have a number of things to look forward to:

Moving to a new social media platform

Our next networking event coming up in London with the next one being in Birmingham

We will be moving into our new Head Office at The Landing in Media City Salford

Setting up a working group to help pharmacists setup their own tech startup

Series of training events helping community pharmacists become IPs and better clinicians as well as training events supporting pharmacists in all sectors become clinically more competent and confident as we aim to provide better clinical services to our patients in the cash-strapped NHS.

In short we have an amazing new year to look forward to and it is all thanks to every single person that have joined our network and made this possible. Please continue to share our platforms to help support pharmacists in all sectors including pre-regs and students as well as technicians.

Have a happy and prosperous new year and together as one profession in Pharmacy, we will make it a success!

From Tohidul Islam and the rest of the Pharmacist Cooperative Team

Networking Supporting Training

#OneProfession