To provide care and services for patients, pharmacists often work long hours and may have irregular working patterns. Like everyone, they also have a home life which contains a variety of other commitments. Yet for the safety of their patients and themselves, they need to be prioritised for vaccinations which means being called for their vaccination at a time that may be dictated by the roll-out arrangements.
Vaccination appointments may conflict with planned working hours and so the PDA is calling on pharmacy employers to make sure they remove any barriers to their pharmacists receiving their vaccinations as soon as possible. This may mean offering to amend working hours, or perhaps letting the pharmacist leave the pharmacy during their paid working day to receive the vaccination.
Throughout this year, the pandemic has required almost all organisations to be flexible. Pharmacy employers must play their part as corporate citizens and support all efforts to get through this pandemic. Having staff vaccinated also builds the resilience of the sector to continue to operate as further waves of the pandemic inevitably hit the population in the new year.
Pharmacists’ experience suggests it is likely to be in the multiples, where many store or area managers are not health professionals, that a lack of understanding will manifest. The PDA is calling on Company Chemist Association members to ensure their management are all instructed to prioritise their staff receiving vaccines as soon as they are available. This, after all, is not just an important public health issue, but also a crucial commercial consideration.
Any PDA members that encounter difficulties obtaining their vaccination because of their employer’s actions, should contact the PDA service centre for advice.