This article appeared in Contact in May 2023. Download magazine here.
With pharmacist roles now added to the Straight to Residence Green List pathway, Amelia Gardner of Pharmacy Recruit, talks about what else could be done to ensure there are enough registered and qualified pharmacists to meet current demand.
In my role as New Zealand’s pharmacy recruitment specialist, I experience frustration from both sides of the fence. There are several employment barriers prospective dispensary staff are facing. What could we do to speed up the employment process?
It’s time to create a new narrative
New Zealand is in the grip of a labour market squeeze, which is slowing business growth. Employers are resisting demand for increased pay rates, so Kiwi pharmacists are leaving the profession, going offshore in search of better pay, taking time out to raise children, or changing career paths completely for a better work/life balance.
We need to change our outdated outlook and create a fresh perspective, acknowledging that there simply aren’t enough Kiwis to fill the need, we have to accept our workforce needs to be supplemented by suitably qualified overseas applicants, some with invaluable and extensive pharmacy experience. We can attempt to supplement the pharmacist workforce by preventing New Zealand residents who already have a pharmacy degree and experience from leaving the country.
If we want to stem the exodus of staff from the profession, we need to:
Revise the community pharmacy funding model
Reduce stress levels and prevent burnout (which will come when more vacancies are filled)
Listen to staff and offer greater flexibility
Introduce incentives, increase pay rates and make them feel valued again
Be generous with praise, show appreciation and improve employee motivation.
We need to revise the way pharmacists are paid and consider commission for pharmacists providing more services (as we are now seeing in Australia) or consider grading pharmacists according to accredited skills and experience, using a realistic pay scale.
Incentivising part-timers and locums to return to the workplace
We could do so much more to remove these barriers and incentivise those working part-time or having children, to remain on the practicing register and continue to be available to work.
One idea is to introduce a lower tier, pro-rata registration fee for part-time pharmacists, encouraging them to remain registered and available for work. That way they won’t be as tempted to leave the profession and will endeavour to maintain their skills.
I’ve found that a high percentage of female pharmacists remove themselves from the practicing register when having children, to eliminate the unreasonable time commitments expected of them and the disproportionately high annual fees involved. We need to incentivise these valued professionals to stay on the register and continue to practice.
New Zealand graduates
Every year, New Zealand produces a significant number of pharmacy graduates who need to undertake a year’s internship under the guidance of a preceptor.
The main barriers affecting this group are onerous costs, poor hourly pay rates, and an inflexible internship intake date. Kiwi intern pharmacists are generally paid well
below the starting salary of other professional graduates, which isn’t a great start to a young person’s career.
Also, why do we still have only one intake for EVOLVE each year? One cut-off date with no flexibility to accommodate international visas, finding a placement, wanting to go overseas between university and settling into full time work. Could the EVOLVE programme have two intakes per annum, six months apart? This would be particularly popular with overseas registered pharmacists where the January timing isn’t always compatible with their immigration timing.
Overseas pharmacists
There are many qualified pharmacists desperate to move to New Zealand to work, so I was pleased to see pharmacists added to the Immigration Green List. Prior to this news being announced, I had 64 overseas candidates in my international recruitment pipeline.
I fully appreciate the need for professional education standards, but under the current circumstances, could our requirements be softened? Countries like Australia, Canada, Ireland, and the UK were already recognising the degrees of more overseas pharmacists, so were securing the lion’s share of migrating pharmacists, while New Zealand missed out.
So, this is a positive step by our government towards resolving our nationwide pharmacist shortage, and there is more work to be done to ensure the registration process is streamlined and effective. I await the rules and finer details to see how this initiative will progress.
The current training requirements, costs, and time to undertake them are problematic. Council and PSNZ need to remove all unnecessary rules and regulations and introduce a new fast-track system to help speed up the process.
The current delay between passing KAPS and starting the Law and Ethics course can be up to eight months. We need to increase the frequency of the NZ law course and the EVOLVE intake annually so that the three components can be undertaken consecutively within a single 12 to 14‑month period.
The upfront training fees for the law and ethics course needs review, allowing experienced international pharmacists to hit the ground running when they arrive, instead of starting as overqualified technicians with an income decrease.