Locum pharmacists in Scotland are struggling to make a living, the PDA last week (February 8) revealed.
Pharmacists raised the issue during the PDA’s first regional committee meeting of 2025, it said.
“Members in Scotland reported that it was almost impossible now to earn a living as a locum pharmacist,” it added.
Read more: ‘I won’t work for Boots again’: Chain cancels locum two hours before shift
The members said that for locums in the region, “a second job was required”.
“Problems included few shifts, very low rates and long travelling distances,” the PDA added.
Locums in the lurch
Last month, C+D reported that a locum was left “disgusted” after Boots cancelled his locum shift two hours before it was due to begin.
He said that he would “not be working for Boots again”, adding that he had not seen anything like it “in 20 years”.
“Apparently it’s getting quite commonplace,” he added.
Read more: ‘Less than minimum wage’: Boots offers locum pharmacists £11 an hour ‘in error’
“It’s a lot of stress to try and get a shift, and then when you get a shift [to] work tomorrow and it gets cancelled…it’s stressful enough already,” he told C+D.
At the time, Boots admitted that the notice given was “inadequate”, while shift booking platform Locate a Locum said it was “difficult for [it] to comment on individual cases”.
Read more: ‘Peasant wages’ for ‘muppets’: Christmas locum rates set to plummet
Meanwhile in October, Boots admitted that it offered locum pharmacists £11 an hour “in error”, after pharmacists on social media warned that low rates would see pharmacists “coming to a foodbank near you soon”.
And in September, pharmacists took to social media to express their dismay at locum rates on offer to them in the upcoming festive period.
One deemed the rates – which were almost seven times lower than the highest paid Christmas shifts reported by Locate a Locum last year – “peasant wages”.
