Pharmacy Support Staff

The GPHC Pharmacy Support staff inform us that Pharmacy support staff are key members of the pharmacy team, assisting the smooth running of pharmacies. Pharmacy support staff are also known as pharmacy assistants or dispensing assistants. They work under the supervision of a pharmacist or pharmacy technician.

Pharmacy support staff have an important role in:

• the dispensing and supply of medicines or medical devices
• assisting pharmacy professionals to provide pharmacy services
• advising on the use of medicines and medical devices

The last role is quite interesting because this could easily mean that, compared to their traditional role, support staff now have more involvement with counselling customers on taking their medicines and device usage. This could be something as simple as counselling a customer how to take their antibiotics or offering something such as inhaler technique training for an asthmatic.

To improve knowledge and of course there are paid courses but there are also many free courses such as the CPPE Consultation skills and Numarknets own Counter Excellence Customer Engagement module found on the Numarknet training platform.

Many Pharmacy Support Staff now have an active role in providing proactive healthy living advice as health champions and assisting other pharmacy professionals to provide pharmacy services to individuals e.g., acting as a Chaperone.