Pre-Reg Pharmacy Technician Review

As a pre-reg pharmacy technician, I am rotated between the different areas in pharmacy such as: aseptics (manufacturing), dispensary, Medicines Information and the wards. On the wards we do drug historys/requistions and TTO's for patients currently admitted which requires communicating with the patients and other professionals such as doctors.

During my course of the apprenticeship my overall knowledge of medicines in general is a new skill as I come into the role as a blank slate where i had no previous experience in pharmacy. I have developed my communication skills with patients learning not to complicate conversations as well as an increase in confidence.

I enjoy the concept of the job as a whole but I feel there is a lack of support between college and the department. The workplace is sometimes a unhealthy environment to work in with other professionals and their attitudes towards students or others in general but understand this can be in any area. I feel there is sometimes undermining of students.

In my programme, i have a 2 year set rota which covers each area and when and how long i should be with that area for. The college side is very well structured however sometimes they set work when i am not in that area which makes it difficult to complete and sometimes forget that i am with them.

In terms of support within the programme, i feel there is a lack of support between the college and my department. For example, my trainer has not worked with this training provider before and so she is not familiar with how they work and so struggles to provide support. Also, my tutor is normally a monthly review where she lets me know what work i will be doing for that month.

In this programme i feel there is not a lot of support from my training provider as it is a review on a monthly basis where we are told what work is being set for that month. Despite being able to contact through email or by the phone, i still feel very distant from my training provider.

I feel it has helped me with certain areas such as with learning what medications are used for what and learning to use resources such as the BNF, but at the moment i don't feel the work is helping me to perform that much better in my role as a whole.

There is not any extra curricular activities as such to get involved in within the department. I feel there is not much encouragement or ambition to do so as there isn't really much to do an extra-curricular activity for. There are some lunchtime lectures, however they are not specifically for pharmacy

Yes

I think the hospital itself is a good place to work and gain new experience/skills in comparison to working in community. I think being exposed to the reality in life is truly eye opening and working in a hospital allows you do create rapports with different departments. It is a very fast pace area to work in.

It is a good place to work and enables you to gain valuable experience from patient facing roles with some knowledgeable people to guide you etc.. However, i think that there are some professionals that are unwelcoming to students and there is a possibility of meeting some in each area that you work in.