Pharmacy assistant

[Careerswapper]

I am a mature woman in my 50s. I have had a good professional career but I gave it up a couple of years ago as I was tired of it. Then the pandemic started and I decided to have a sabbatical.

I am too young to not work again though so it is time to rejoin the workforce. But I would like to do something completely different and yesterday I saw a sign in a local chemist for a pharmacy assistant. I had thought about this before but hadn’t pursued it through the NHS recruitment process but I was thinking I might apply for this role. I run them yesterday and they just asked me to drop my CV in.

I think I would be suited to the role, I have a science background and confident on things like accuracy, attention to detail, customer service etc. I am happy to study towards any qualifications and confident that this won’t be a problem for me,

I am interested to hear from anyone that is either in this role or works with people in this role. Just to learn a little bit more about it. It doesn’t look like there would be scope to progress to anything else? I can’t decide if that is a problem or not, in theory, I wanted a job that I go to work and come home from but in the past, I have always wanted to progress and the old me might still be there, so interested in this aspect in particular.

My mum does this (she’s 49) she’s a glorified shop assistant and gets paid not much more than minimum wage despite doing her dispensing qualification

I work in a hospital pharmacy, band 5 and qualified as a technician 2 years ago and I would definitely recommend going hospital route if available as you get a lot more support and have more opportunities with progression.

I worked in Boots previously 10yrs and it went downhill towards the end with pressures of sale and targets.
In a hospital setting you're not dealing with patients unless working on wards which I do and love. I started off as a band 2 assistant, and within 4 yrs Id progressed to band 3, then 2 yrs student technician, then band 4 tech after qualifying and now band 5. Once I've completed some extra courses and have a bit more experience and clinical knowledge under my belt, I'll be looking at band 6 from next year.

If you're determined, the hard work will pay off 😊

My mum does this (she’s 49) she’s a glorified shop assistant and gets paid not much more than minimum wage despite doing her dispensing qualification

I think thats a bit mean calling your mum a glorifed sales assistant, being a dispenser is a very responsible job, worst outcome of not paying attention you could potentially kill someone. Cant really compare that to serving on a checkout or stacking shelves.

All of the above is good advice. I would add that confidentiality and data protection are very important in that line of work. You will be exposed to very personal information.

@Ilikewinter she stacks the shelf, serves a few customers, drinks coffee and reads her book.. but again only gets paid around 25p more p/h than minimum wage so hey ho