Locum pharmacist Simon Morgan last week (January 8) told C+D that he “will not be working for Boots again” after the pharmacy chain cancelled his 8:30am shift “with poor reason at 6.40am”.
He said after booking the shift at the Brecon Boots branch on January 7 through Locate a Locum, he woke up the next morning to a message from the shift booking platform saying “’your shift has been cancelled’ – and the reason was just awful – ‘because the normal manager is in’”.
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“Well, no, you booked me and therefore it’s legally binding…if I had done that, I would have received three black marks and not been able to book shifts for a month,” he added.
“The cancellation was extremely close to the shift start time, I was close to leaving the house” and “they did not provide alternative cover”, he stressed.
“I just think it’s disgusting,” Morgan said, adding that he has been “cancelled once or twice, but never on the day”.
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“I’ve never seen that in 20 years,” he told C+D. “I am disgusted that a huge pharmacy such as Boots is behaving like this”.
“A number of people have said that I should charge for the day, and I definitely think I should…today I am furious, and I probably will look to get paid,” he added.
Boots admitted that the notice given was “inadequate”, while Locate a Locum said it was “difficult for [it] to comment on individual cases”. Read both companies’ full responses below.
“A lot of stress”
Morgan told C+D that the last-minute cancellation seems to be part of a growing pattern and “has happened with a couple of people with Boots”.
“Apparently it’s getting quite commonplace…I think that’s really bad,” he added.
“It’s the cheek of it, they know they can get away with it [but] I don’t want them to” – “it’s time these companies were held to account before this becomes more commonplace,” Morgan said.
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“I just don’t want it to get out of control…because that would really be stressful,” he added.
“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 said.
“Inadequate” notice
Morgan told C+D that his Boots area manager initially “ignored” his complaints, but eventually “did respond and said they’re looking into it”, although he’s “not sure if that’s going to come to anything”.
“Occasionally we need to cancel locum shifts for operational reasons,” a Boots spokesperson yesterday (January 13) told C+D.
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“We acknowledge that the notice given in this instance was inadequate,” they added.
“We are in touch with this pharmacist to resolve the matter,” they said.
“Both are to blame”
Morgan told C+D that “it is definitely Locate a Locum’s fault as well as Boots”, adding that “both companies are to blame”.
“Locate a Locum now has a monopoly over companies and shifts - locum pharmacists have to book their shifts through this app as most of the companies use it,” he said.
“However, the ability to negotiate has gone and it amounts to artificial wage lowering at a time where pharmacy is at its most stressful,” he added.
In an email to Morgan seen by C+D, Locate a Locum admitted that “this is not acceptable” and said it “strongly [advises] Boots to cancel with as much notice as possible”.
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“However, for emergency purposes, they do have to have the ability to be able to cancel shifts at any point,” the booking platform told Morgan.
And on Friday (January 10), a Locate a Locum spokesperson told C+D that “there are over 250,000 live shifts on Locate a Locum at any time and thousands of daily bookings so it is difficult for us to comment on individual cases”.
“We understand that cancellations can happen occasionally due to unforeseen circumstances on both sides,” they added.
“We encourage both locums and employers to give as much notice as possible when cancelling shifts,” they said.
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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”.
