If you are in the business of operating a pharmacy, one of the issues that you have to deal with is that of staff being away from work. This can be for one of several reasons, such as holidays, sickness, accident, time off caring for a family member who is unwell, maternity or paternity benefit, getting stuck overseas (especially in view of the constant changing of traffic light colours by the government), having to self-isolate in a hotel for ten days after returning from abroad, and more.

Just taking holidays alone, staff are entitled to 5.6 weeks holiday year, which adds up to 28 days. If you have four pharmacists in your practice, that means that you are going to be one pharmacist short for a total of more than one-third of the year. Unfortunately, you cannot run a pharmacy for that length of time without having enough people to cover. And that is just for the holidays. On top of that, there are all the other times that people are unable to work for one reason or another.

Certainly, you may be able to cover unexpected absences for a couple of days without too much hassle, but you cannot allow a situation to occur where customers are unable to get their prescriptions on time because you don’t have enough people able to prepare them. You also have to allow for all the customers who come into the pharmacy and want to talk to the pharmacist about whatever illnesses they may be suffering from, and which don’t seem bad enough to go to the doctor – even if it is possible to get an appointment with the doctor in any case.

All of these situations mean that you very often need to acquire the services of a locum pharmacist to cover for you, and locum pharmacists are not cheap. In fact, according to Chemist and Druggist in February this year, the average pay of a locum pharmacist in 2020 rose by 35p an hour from £21.99 in 2019 to £22.34 which is the highest it has been since 2012.

There are certainly regional differences, with locum pharmacists based in the southwest of England reporting the biggest rate increase, with their average hourly pay in 2020 at £23.84, up £2.04 on the previous year. They were closely followed by their colleagues in the northeast of England, who got paid an average of £23.47 an hour in 2020, up £1.04 on the 2019 pay rate.

Oddly enough, locum pharmacists in London earned the lowest pay at £20.60 an hour on average, which was a decrease of 78p an hour in 2019.

Even so, you still have to hire a locum as and when necessary, and this could be for a matter of a couple of weeks or for several months. If you have a pharmacist who is involved in a car accident, for instance, it could take months to recover sufficiently to return to work.

All of which is why you need the locum insurance for a pharmacist which we can arrange for you at Approachable Locum Insurance. As you will gather from our name, arranging locum insurance is what we do, and that can be for pharmacists, doctors, dentists, vets, physiotherapists, opticians, and so on. All of these professions require a locum from time to time.

We can tailor an insurance plan to cover your needs since no two pharmacies are exactly alike. Things that you may want to cover are accident or illness, compassionate leave, jury service, paternity benefit, suspension cover, and so on. You may also choose to allow for a period before the insurance kicks in, which can help to reduce the premium.

Talk to us about your needs, and we will arrange the perfect policy for you.