The PDA exists to represent, defend and support the interests of members, both individually and collectively, whether employees, locums or pharmacy undergraduates. Our campaigning for the entire profession is widely reported and visible in the public domain with our broader workstreams such as PDA Education and our equality networks helping to support and develop the profession. We are proud of the influence we make as the largest pharmacist membership organisation in the UK.
Alongside our campaigning, the wide range of support we provide for individuals includes areas such as employment issues, professional regulatory investigations, pharmacy-related criminal investigations, inquests and addressing professional indemnity claims and complaints. However, we are often unable to talk about the great outcomes we secure for individual pharmacists and pre-registration pharmacists.
This is sometimes because strict confidentiality is necessary to secure the best outcome and this forms part of the legally binding settlement agreement. Also, after having had a bad experience, our members often want to move on and avoid having a spotlight shone upon the mistreatment they have suffered at work. We fully respect the wishes of our members and any confidentiality agreements in force, so that means much of the detail of what we have achieved for pharmacists will always remain out of sight and go unreported.
However, where we can share anonymised summaries of cases we will, as illustrated in the tweet above. We do this not as an exercise in self-praise, but because we exist to help pharmacists and we want every member of the profession to understand the sort of issues they may face during their career. As a membership organisation, we can only provide individual support to those who are our members and we want more pharmacists to join us so that we are also able to help them.
The following feedback received from a locum, which they agreed we could publish, explains how our specialist legal advice can really make a huge difference
“I had been working as a locum, on a self-employed basis, mainly in one pharmacy. It came to my attention that I could have missed out on holiday pay and other benefits of not being treated as an employee. I had a chat with a legal advisor from the PDA, who advised me of my rights. I sent off a letter and a schedule of loss to the pharmacy owner, as advised by the PDA. As of today, I received a 5 figure payment in my bank account. Thank you PDA for your accurate, helpful advice, every pharmacist needs support like this.”
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We also publish an anonymised selection of feedback reflecting what pharmacists say after we have helped them resolve an issue in their workplace, or in the cases of pharmacy students issues in their university. Read our testimonials here.