The Most Issue 2

| 22 Preferred Locums are a Manchester based agency; supplying ‘locum’ Pharmacists and Pharmacy Dispensers in times of need due to holidays or sickness. Here, Liz Mannion, Business Administrator & Rota Coordinator for Preferred Locums speaks to us and explains how the Coronavirus pandemic affected an industry that overnight, was excelled into urgent need. What were your first thoughts when Covid-19 hit? As a company whose main focus is to be a support to the healthcare industry, we were monitoring Covid-19 very closely, some months prior to the UK outbreak. Despite this, it was daunting as it was something completely different for everyone, it was an area of complete unknown. There is only so much preparation that can be done for something when there are so many factors out of our control. We experienced a huge spike of incoming requests for cover because at the time if you felt any of the symptoms you had to go home and isolate – whether you were a key worker or not - tests just weren’t available and when they were, there’s still a wait period for results. Pharmacies were one of the few places that were still allowed to be open and needed to be open. Even so, we were blown away with how many requests came in, despite all the preparation. As much as we’d hoped Covid-19 would be over within the space of a couple of months, we had to be ready for that not to be the case and many of us had a gut feeling that it wouldn’t pass quickly. Did you have to put any immediate and creative/innovative solutions in place? We are strong believers that every problem has a solution and are constantly thinking of ways to resolve situations and make improvements to make us the best version of ourselves we can be. Covid-19 was no exception to this. As a company we took the time to look at what we could do in order to not only survive but to excel. This included constantly brainstorming ideas of alterations or improvements, to ensure that employees did not have to be placed on the Government furlough scheme. You employ apprentices at Preferred Locums, how have you supported them during this time? Not only has Covid-19 been difficult for people who have several years of working life experience under their belt – it is incredibly difficult for those who do not have this yet. Covid-19 brought so much negativity into the world of em- ployment – from people fearing for their health to fearing for their employment. Apprentices often think that they are ‘at the bottom of the food chain’ and if anything is to happen, they will be the first to lose out. For us, this is not the case. We have planned in more apprentice support than prior to Covid-19! This included plotting in regular team meetings EMPLOYER SPOTLIGHT: PREFERRED LOCUMS