At ten past nine on a Sunday morning the only pharmacist at a neighbourhood chemist rang to say he was ill. The shutter was half up. A queue of people with prescriptions had formed and a delivery boy waited for the first batch of home orders. The owner could bill, but he was not the registered pharmacist on the licence. He had to choose between shutting the counter and leaving the licence holder question open.
Pharmacies and medical retail cannot cover absence the way a garment shop can. Some seats need a particular qualification. Others hold keys to a cold fridge or a ward indent. Cover must therefore be mapped by seat and by what the seat is allowed to do.
Sort the seats into three groups
- Seats that need a qualified person: dispensing against prescriptions, supervising the counter, and checking substitutions.
- Seats that need a trained person but not a qualification: billing, stock entry, cold-chain checks, expiry tray work and ward indent picking.
- Seats that need only a briefed person: packing home orders, shelf-filling, delivery rounds and cleaning.
A single plan for all three groups will not hold. A cashier can fill in for a packer, but a packer cannot dispense. State the rule in the rota so no one is tempted to try. Who must be present, and when, comes from your licence. Verify it with your adviser.
Shapes of absence in this trade
- 1
The sick call at opening
The pharmacist on duty cannot come. The standby pharmacist is called at a fixed hour, before the shutter goes up. If there is no standby, a sister branch sends one for the morning, or the counter opens for non-prescription items only, as your adviser permits.
- 2
The long leave
Hire a locum pharmacist for the period. Keep a simple handover file with the current rota, vendor list, credit customers and the tray of near-expiry stock.
- 3
The night shift gap in a hospital pharmacy
Ward indents and OT kits do not wait. Keep a roster of two pharmacy assistants per night with one senior who can authorise issues.
- 4
The route salesman who is away
In a medical distributor, route sales, cheque collection and order pick-up depend on one person's relationships. Draw up a route card with customer names, credit days and outstanding bills so a colleague can cover.
What each business type needs in hand
An independent pharmacy needs one trained second person for billing and one standby pharmacist, even on a part-time basis. A hospital pharmacy needs a night rota that tolerates two absences. A pharmacy chain can pool pharmacists across branches, but then must record who is where and how long a transfer takes. A surgical store needs a fitter or demonstrator for wheelchair, walker and oxygen concentrator deliveries. A medical equipment dealer needs a service engineer on call after installation.
Cold chain, expiry and keys
Some duties are easy to forget when a person is away. The fridge for insulin and vaccines needs a morning and evening temperature reading. The expiry tray needs a monthly sweep. The returns to the distributor must be raised before the credit note window closes. The keys to the locked cupboard and the cash drawer must be handed to someone named. Add all of these to a one-page absence card for each seat.
Seat and branch: ____.
Tasks done at opening, noon and closing: ____.
Qualification or training needed: ____.
First cover and phone: ____.
Second cover and phone: ____.
Keys, passwords and registers handed over: ____.
Fridge, expiry and return duties: ____.
Who informs the owner and by what hour: ____.Peaks that thin the counter
Fever season in the monsoon brings long queues for paracetamol, ORS and antibiotics prescribed by the OPD down the road. The first week of the month brings chronic refill orders for blood pressure, diabetes and thyroid tablets, often with a request for home delivery. Evenings after clinic hours are the busiest. Festival holidays shorten the distributor's delivery window, so stock must be ordered earlier. Absence on any of these days is costly.
- Book standby cover for the first week of each month and the weeks after a festival.
- Block leave in peak fever weeks for billing and counter staff.
- Ask the delivery boy to batch home orders at fixed hours instead of single trips.
- Keep a stock of printed invoice books in case the billing software or internet fails.
- Confirm which distributor salesman is on leave before placing the weekend order.
Keep the bench warm
Retired hospital pharmacists, final-year students, part-timers and staff from a sister branch can form a bench. Pay a small retainer. Run a one-hour orientation on your billing software, shelf layout and substitution policy, so the first real call is not the first visit.
The hub for pharmacies and medical retail lists other pressure points in this sector.
