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Interview: Helping pharmacists in their hour of need
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Danielle Hunt, chief executive of Pharmacist Support tells Arthur Walsh about her mission to make sure no pharmacist has to face challenging times on their own
“If you go into a profession where you’re helping other people, it’s quite hard to acknowledge your own vulnerability,” Danielle Hunt tells me. As the chief executive of sector charity Pharmacist Support, she and her team frequently encounter pharmacists who have shouldered too much stress for far too long and have come close to their breaking point.
Case studies published on the Manchester-based organisation’s website bear out the breadth of the life challenges pharmacists can find themselves in, from difficult workplaces to issues like domestic violence. There are accounts from individuals whose impostor syndrome gnawed at their self-worth, or who sought residential treatment for crippling addiction issues.
Hunt tells me how pastoral and financial support helped one young MPharm student pass her registration exam the second time around after she had left an abusive relationship. “We supported her while she resat the exam, and when she qualified she was still living in temporary accommodation and struggling to access work because she didn’t have a car. We funded a small car so she could take a job in a hospital pharmacy. Our help throughout these stages has allowed her to rebuild her life and now she no longer needs that financial support,” she explains.
Amid reports of a dire workload crisis within the profession, Hunt says the charity has seen a decline in mental health. “There is a trend of growing severity of mental health problems,” she says, explaining that sector-wide burnout is giving rise to more complex cases.
“We all know about the impact of things like increased workload and staffing shortages. It’s now becoming long term,” says Hunt, commenting that no one starting out in their healthcare career ever expects to find themselves in such dire straits. “You suddenly end up in this situation you never expected, and you need more support. It might even be housing support, because you’re at risk of losing your home; things can start to become quite complex, quite quickly.”
Services offered by the charity, which was established in 1841 as the Benevolent Fund of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB), include counselling – over 2,500 sessions have been delivered since April 2021 – as well as a ‘listening friends’ scheme operated by trained volunteers. The latter is one of its longest running services. “People value the fact that our volunteers have worked in the profession and know what it’s like to be a pharmacist,” Hunt adds.
Management matters
At this year’s Pharmacy Show, Hunt and a colleague will give a talk titled ‘Thriving beyond burnout: Nurturing a healthier pharmacy culture.’ But just how bad is the burnout, and how are workplaces contributing to it?
“People are facing increased demands on the job. We think we’ve moved on from the pandemic, but for a lot of people the expectation to keep delivering more is something that’s just gone on and on,” she explains.
Poor staffing, a lack of a work-life balance and the absence of protected on-the-job learning time can all feed a sense that pharmacists have little support from senior colleagues, she warns. She reels off some of the top-line findings from its February 2024 wellbeing survey, part of an annual exercise the charity carries out alongside the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS).
“Eighty-six per cent of respondents were at high risk of burnout, rising to 96 per cent of those working in community pharmacy – those are shocking figures.”
Worryingly, findings tend to be worse across the board for the community sector compared with hospital and GP pharmacists. Hunt says this is partly due to working in small teams in which individuals take a lot of pressure on themselves, which can cause or exacerbate feelings of isolation.
High levels of abuse don’t help. “While the public mood may have been especially sensitive at the height of the pandemic, even now, with prescription delays or things like Pharmacy First, if there is any confusion it is the pharmacist who is hit with it straightaway,” she highlights.
The wellbeing survey unearthed frightening findings on the frequency of abuse and discrimination: “It wasn’t just members of the public, it was within teams as well. That is definitely linked to workplace culture.”
This is why Pharmacist Support is really keen to raise awareness. “There are external issues like pharmacy funding where it’s difficult for a charity to make an impact,” she admits. “But what we can definitely do is promote a positive workplace culture.”
“There is lots of evidence to say that even in these challenging environments, if a pharmacist feels heard and valued – and feels they can raise their issues – it all has a positive knock-on effect for wellbeing. If it’s the opposite, then it’s even more challenging.
“For us, it’s about what you can do within pharmacy teams to address some of these issues and offering support to other organisations as they work on higher level issues.”
Rising need
The charity is working to meet a growth in demand for mental health services like counselling, driven both by rising stress and the charity’s own efforts at boosting its digital reach. Between 2022 and 2023 there was a 63 per cent jump in the number of support calls provided by an addiction counsellor, and a 45 per cent increase in website searches for help coping with life stressors.
In addition to this, Hunt says more people are leaning on the charity for financial assistance after falling on hard times. The charity received 50 per cent more applications for financial assistance in 2023 than the previous year, which demonstrates what’s going on in the wider economic climate, she maintains. Last year it gave over £327,000 in financial assistance, 31 per cent of the charity’s total annual expenditure. It also secured £64,178 in financial gains through helping service users navigate benefit claims and make successful appeals against Department for Work and Pensions decisions.
“It’s been a really stark reminder of how important the charity is. It’s not just a bit of mental health support or some financial assistance; it is holistic support that is more important than ever,” Hunt states.
The numbers alone don’t paint the full picture, she adds, as some complex cases can take up much of the team’s time.
Meanwhile, nine MPharm students successfully applied for the charity’s student bursary, which wholesaler Alliance Healthcare is helping to fund through a multi-year partnership. “It’s one of our most impactful offerings,” says Hunt. “It helps people who have faced something really unexpected during their time of study and it supports them to finish their degree. We’ve had reports from people who said they would have dropped out without it. It’s crucial for the next generation of pharmacists and helps create a more level playing field; some people haven’t got financial support available at home.”
The cohorts of students completing their degrees during the pandemic years have faced unique challenges, she adds.
“We’ve met with quite a few students who have become ambassadors for us to build their confidence, as they feel they missed out on important personal growth in their first and second years through being behind a screen. With the end of their degrees looming, what comes after can seem daunting.”
Building relationships
Since Hunt took the helm at the charity, a key focus has been on developing close relationships with organisations across the sector, ranging from professional representative bodies like the Pharmacists’ Defence Association and the RPS to wholesalers and other corporations. “This was a big part of our current five-year strategy, which launched in 2020. It’s vital for the charity’s survival. We knew we needed to raise awareness of the work we do, and because we don’t have our own network of every pharmacist those partnerships are crucial.”
They also bring in vital funding, she adds. She mentions a long-running partnership with the PDA, which donates £1 for each of its members. “That steady income is crucial for us when we’re looking ahead and planning services,” she says.
As she and her team formulate their post-2025 strategy, are they looking to reach out to other organisations? “We’re excited about building more collaborations in the future.We’ve been working more closely with the General Pharmaceutical Council, offering feedback on aspects of regulation that might cause stress for people; it helps them to look at some of their structures and communications,” she reveals.
Partnerships are beneficial in all sorts of ways, not just financially, Hunt believes. For example, getting sector bodies behind the annual ActNow campaign can help to turn the tide on the high risk of burnout. She says of the campaign, which like several other initiatives launched during the pandemic: “We have always been banging the drum, but now others can see it first-hand too. Having that vehicle for different organisations to get behind has been really useful; it’s good for pharmacists to see people working together to support them, it makes the profession feel valued.”
Next strategy
“It only feels like two minutes since we created the last strategy!” says Hunt. Reflecting on how the charity has worked to meet its goals, she notes: “Only 40 per cent of pharmacists had heard of us in January 2020 – that has increased to 70 per cent. There is still work to do, but our campaigns and partnerships have started to pay off.”
She adds: “We’ve got a solid base to build on now. We’ve invested in our digital tools and want to leverage them to look at more ways for people to access our services. We want to take the digital side further so it’s easier for pharmacists to self-refer – it takes some of the pressure off our small team.”
“We also want to look at how our support can be tailored to meet the needs of individual groups, such as newly qualified pharmacists, locums or those planning for retirement. It’s a big, complex profession, and with the different areas worked in, there are often individual issues. We want to tailor our support and make it really relevant.”
“We never stand still – we’re always trying to develop,” she says, adding that the team is just about to launch a new wellbeing podcast. She often asks herself: ‘What can we do to offer day-to-day proactive support, so that people don’t just come to us when they are in dire need?’
Pounds and pence are an ever-looming issue, too. Raising charity funds has always been a battle but has become more challenging post-pandemic, says Hunt. “Like other charities, we’ve been hit hard over the last five years. There’s a been a huge shift in how people donate, and we’re just not seeing as many individual donations as before. As we move into our next strategy this will be a key question for us: how do we attract people to make donations?”
Legacy donations have made a big impact over the charity’s history, she notes, with a large legacy from late pharmacist Robert Wardley 10 years ago having funded a wellbeing service launched in his name.
Pharmacist Support is heavily reliant on its investments. A trustees’ report for 2023 shows the total value of the charity’s investments stood at £14.7m, and outlines a policy of maintaining free reserves at a minimum level of £11.5m in order to provide certainty that it can “sustain operational activities now and into the future”.
‘No one is alone’
Hunt and her team are particularly proud of winning Small Charity of the Year in 2023 which recognised the progress the charity has made since it launched its rebranding and new website in 2020 as well as adding more points of access for potential services users. “For us as a small team to be punching above our weight has been really good – and hopefully it’s good for the profession to see too,” she smiles.
Hunt sums up her mission with one key message: “No one is alone in the sector, and our aim is to make sure no one has to face challenging times on their own. There is a safety net – no one should feel afraid of seeking help. And we must really focus on workplace culture, looking after our teams so they know they’re valued. “