Has the £25 barrier been broken?

Ever since the fallow year of 2000, locum pharmacists have come up against a virtual glass ceiling when negotiating rates. The ceiling was £25 per hour an although some locums manged to negotiate slightly highly hourly fee’s for last minute bookings, most resorted to travel time to increase their income.

2008 has been different. We have been able to negotiate rates of £27, £30 and even £40 for our locums on numerous occasions. Why have things changed? I believe there’s a couple of main reasons.

Firstly everyone (Even locum coordinators) understands that in the present economic climate, things are tough and they expect goods and services to cost more. In addition there is no doubt that the increased demand on pharmacists time by additional services and 100 hour pharmacies has made a commodity that is in short supply, i.e. good quality locum pharmacists, even more in demand.

Whatever the reason we believe that these increased rates are here to stay so don’t fall for the usual attempt by the multiples, come the end of August to succeed. Demand that the increased rates remain and help yourself ease the pain of the credit crunch.

Shaun is a Director of PL-UK Ltd – a respected provider of pharmacy jobs, both permanent and locum.