Dedicated pharmacy school is needed to avert community pharmacy 'crisis' 

'We cannot expect other countries to fill the gaps of our education system any longer,' according to Irish Pharmacy Union president Dermot Twomey. Stock picture

A dedicated pharmacy school is needed in Ireland to stave off the growing shortage and dwindling of numbers of qualified staff, the union representing the profession has said.

The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) had already in recent weeks warned of community-based chemists forced into “shorter opening hours, closures on weekends and bank holidays” due to a dearth of qualified staff, and has now said a school is needed to combat what it calls an “impending crisis”.

Last year, 165 pharmacists were trained, a number the IPU says is woefully short of what is required.

In order to qualify as a pharmacist, five years’ study to masters level qualification is required, while there are three higher education institutes teaching pharmacy across the country, which the IPU claims is not enough. IPU president Dermot Twomey said: 

Ireland has just over 6,700 registered pharmacists. Annually we are training just 2.4% of that number — this is simply not enough, and is leading to major problems for community pharmacies across the country.

“This needs to be addressed urgently," he said. "At this rate, the sector will soon be unable to cope with retirements, let alone the pressures caused by our growing population that is increasingly older, as well as greater demands on the sector as a whole.”

Ireland has outsourced the training of pharmacists to the likes of the UK and other nations, but with a similar shortage now seen in Britain, the situation is critical, he said.

“The UK is also experiencing a shortfall of an estimated 3,000 community pharmacists, which will only exacerbate the shortages here in Ireland,” he said.

“Brexit and the challenges of Covid-19 have also highlighted how unsustainable outsourcing education is.

We cannot expect other countries to fill the gaps of our education system any longer, particularly for skills essential to our healthcare system. 

A lack of pharmacists will also have a knock-on effect on already stretched GP services, he claimed.

“Pharmacists are increasingly providing additional services such as vaccinations, smoking cessation therapy, and diabetes and blood pressure monitoring,” he said. “If there aren’t enough pharmacists, a reduction in services is inevitable.”

The IPU has also claimed recently that bloated bureaucracy and excessive red tape is proving a huge turnoff for would-be pharmacists.

It pointed to research commissioned by the IPU showing 98% of pharmacists now feel they spend too much time on paperwork.