Pharmacy advisor Review

In my role at boots I am training to become a pharmacy advisor, on a day to day basis I work with customers on the healthcare counter giving them advice and medicines and also I train in the dispensary by making up prescriptions and handing them out to the patients. On a day to day basis I spend time labelling prescriptions, dispensing and other dispensary roles, and working on the healthcare counter.

I have learned lots of skills, I feel like before my apprenticeship I didn't know a lot about medicines or healthcare, and I didn't know how prescriptions worked, I have learned lots in my time through working and doing lots of practical work. The most skills I have boosted are my communication skills with customers and my confidence in my abilities. I have also improved my problem solving skills which have helped me to resolve issues and queries at work with customers and patients

I really enjoy the practical side of the program. I enjoy working with customers and the knowledge I have gained. There are some aspects I think could be improved within the communication of the apprenticeship itself. But overall I have enjoyed the program and feel it has been a very worthwhile experience and feel very glad I participated .

In my store I feel very valued by the staff and my colleagues and feel like what I do is appreciated and valued for what I do and help to achieve in my team. As a boots company I also feel somewhat valued to an extent, as I feel that a lot of effort has gone into the company to train the apprentices but as an individual I think boots as a company could help to make their staff feel more valued.

The program itself is organised to an extent but I feel like the apprentices needed to be more updated and informed of things such as assingment due dates and more structure within the program to help us feel less overwhelmed by it all. I think the buddy systems was very good as it meant that apprentices could discuss the program and help eachother by motivating eachother and reminding eachother of due dates and such.

I receive a lot of support from my tutor in store as they help me and always teach me new things about working in a pharmacy and on a healthcare counter. My apprenticeship tutor has been very helpful in answering questions when I needed help and advice and they were usually very quick at responding to messages and queries.

My employer is incredibly supportive, my manager makes sure that I get all my protected learning time as she was very helpful at giving me time during the day to do my assignments and my elearnings, they also told me when I was up to date or any information that had been passed down from the program or head office.

I feel like the salary is very fair for my program, I feel like we are paid well for an apprenticeship and the wage goes up after you have completed your elearnings so it was an extra bonus of motivation to complete the course and persue it. I have been very happy with the wage and as it is a full time job I think the money is very good for a training staffs wage

Outside of work I feel like there are lots of other opportunities within boots such as going to extra training days or training at a different store, but I haven't done any of these as I am not sure how to go about it and not sure if I would want to do them at this moment in time. But there are lots of learning opportunities with boots as a company outside of the store.

Yes

The reason I would recommend boots to a friend is because I feel like the apprenticeship was very valuable at helping me to gain more skills in a working environment and to get more skills to become a better individual also. I would also recommend it because for an apprentice you can learn whilst working which is good for people who are more practical minded rather than wanting to study in a class.

I would advise them to make sure they are prepared to do a lot of assignments, and to tell them to make sure it is a role they really want to go into as I feel you have to be passionate about helping people and caring for them to work in a role in a pharmacy and for boots as a company.