Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

As you are considered self-employed, you will be paid directly by each company you work for, for your services as a locum.

On the booking information, you will be able to see what you need to do to claim payment for each shift. It should detail how to submit an invoice, when you will be paid and what method you will be paid by.

If you ever have any payment issues, you can let us know on your online diary and we can assist you with getting it resolved.

We appreciate leaving an employed job to become a self-employed locum can be a daunting prospect. Locuming provides so many benefits; competitive rates of pay, variety, flexibility and lots of experience. We consider all our locums as individuals and individuals have specific requirements that have an effect on the advice we would give. We recommend all employed pharmacists, pharmacy dispensers and pharmacy technicians to call us to discuss their situation. We can give you the best advice for YOU before you make any permanent decisions. Call us on 01254 870 510.

We have so many benefits for a locum joining Pharmaseekers! Read about them all in our dedicated Locum Info hub.

No, we’re free from start to finish for our locums.

Below are the essential documents and details we require in order to approve your account with us.

You will also have the opportunity to upload additional documents, such as advanced local services, in order to improve booking chances.

If you have successfully completed the necessary training as a pharmacist, dispenser or technician, it’s unlikely that you don’t have a suitable referee. Referees don’t have to be a manager or supervisor. It can be another pharmacy related colleague. The most important factors are that they have worked with you within a dispensary setting and they have enough pharmaceutical knowledge to be able to comment on your skills.

Rates of pay are dictated by a variety of factors and change often. Give us a call on 01254 870 510, we’ll ask you some questions about you and your situation and we’ll be able to give you a more accurate answer.

Yes, we have a wide variety of locum pharmacist job vacancies on our system. They’re just waiting for you!

All our locums have different booking preferences. Some book part time, some book full time. If we also take into consideration the impact of a locum’s location on the rate they achieve, no two locums are the same on our system. As a result, there is no accurate average salary figure. For a better idea of what you would be able to earn in your area, get in touch with one of our team who will have current, relevant information for you. Email us at enquiries@pharmaseekers.co.uk or call us on 01254870510.

Yes, we have a wide variety of locum job vacancies on our system.

We get work in community pharmacies, internet pharmacies, GP surgeries and other non-customer facing settings.

All our locums have different booking preferences. Some book part time, some book full time. If we also take into consideration the impact of a locum’s location on the rate they achieve, no two locums are the same on our system so there is no average salary figure. For a better idea of what you would be able to earn in your area, get in touch with one of our team who will have current, relevant information for you. Email us at enquiries@pharmaseekers.co.uk or call us on 01254870510.

To start booking jobs with Pharmaseekers, you will need to complete a registration with us. If you’re ready to go ahead, click here to get to our registration page. If you’d like to know more about how we work first, head over to our Locum Info Hub page.

After registration, our two main methods of giving you access to locum jobs are 1) traditional locum job offers and 2) Circulated Vacancy Search (CVS).

Traditional locum job offers are single job offers, sent to you by our team and system. They are offered to you based on your availability and other factors such as minimum rate of pay, travel preferences etc. These offers, as with all our offers, are at your discretion to accept or reject.

Circulated Vacancy Search (CVS) allows you to search through all our available locum jobs within a reasonable mileage distance (you can decide this distance). You choose the dates you want to search on and you get to choose the locum jobs you want to make offers on. You can make multiple offers for the same date to increase your booking chances for that date.

Our registration is a straightforward, online process. We will ask you to provide us with some information and documents and complete a short video call to verify your ID. You can read more about our registration process on our Locum Info Hub page. You can register via our app. You can download it via the Apple App store or Google Play store. Once download you can start your registration on the main page by tapping “Sign up as a locum”.

Yes, we do get evening shifts. Once registered you will have access to an online diary that you can set with your preferred hours, this dictates the traditional locum job offers you receive. You can also use our CVS tool to search for your own work and use the filters to look at specific hours.

If you are a locum dispenser or locum technician, DBS certificates are not often insisted upon by our pharmacy businesses. However, as a locum pharmacist, not having a DBS certificate can negatively impact the amount of locum pharmacist jobs available to you.

You must have an Enhanced Disclosure which has requested checks in all possible categories. It must also be a child and adult workforce check too. Finally, your certificate must be subscribed to the DBS update service.

Unfortunately, for us to verify that your certificate is on the DBS update service, DBS themselves insist that we must see the original certificate first. If you cannot show us your original certificate, we cannot check it’s on the update service and therefore cannot use it.

To get an Enhanced DBS certificate, it must be requested on your behalf by a company. You are not able to acquire one as an individual. We can request one for you and that option will be visible to you during the registration process. It is a service we only offer to existing or registering Pharmaseekers locums.

Please contact us by email or call us on 01254 870 510 to let us know. We can easily rearrange the call for you.

Please email us on enquiries@pharmaseekers.co.uk. We’ll get in touch with the customer and decide on how best to get your invoice to them.

Excellent, congratulations! Email us on enquiries@pharmaseekers.co.uk or call us on 01254 870 510 to let us know. We’ll make the necessary changes on our side and let you know what additional documents/information you’ll need to provide.

Please give us a call on 01254 870 510 or email on enquiries@pharmaseekers.co.uk. We’ll check to make sure your account details are still on our system and let you know about any updated documents/information you’ll need to provide.

Please email us on enquiries@pharmaseekers.co.uk. We’ll get in touch with the customer and decide on how best to resolve the issue.

Sure! We regularly run Peer Allocations whereby locums willing to participate are allocated another locum who needs a peer. Get in touch with us once you’re fully registered!

Please call us on 01254 870 510 immediately. It would really help us smooth things over if you can let us know the reason for running late and a new ETA. We’ll handle everything after that for you so you can concentrate on getting to your booking safely.

We have been booking locums with pharmacy businesses for over 20 years so we think we’re qualified to say we know what qualities our customers look for most; Punctuality, Reliability, Approachability and Proactivity.

If you can arrive to your booking with a few minutes to spare, respond to your colleagues and patients with friendliness and demonstrate proactiveness with tasks during the day, we can almost guarantee you will enjoy your day and the business will be happy to have you back.

Don’t worry, we understand that everyone gets ill from time to time, even healthcare workers! Please call us on 01254 870 510 immediately, as soon as you are aware that you will not be able to attend your next booking. It would really help us if you can let us know a little bit of information about your illness. We promise we’re not nosey, but it allows us to express to the business that cancellation isn’t a choice but a necessity.

We won’t penalise you for rejecting offers if they’re not suitable. If we notice a lot of rejections, then we like to give you a call to go through your booking preferences as we probably need to adjust your settings to generate more suitable job offers.

Following GPhC guidance, we are not able to book current or previous MPharm students as a locum dispenser or locum technician. You must have an NVQ (or equivalent) accreditation in dispensing for us to be able to book you into the role.

Give us a call to discuss this, we’d love to talk to your about your circumstances and location, together we should be able to figure out the best settings for you.

TOP TIP: To maximise the number and variety of locum jobs you have access to, consider being as unrestrictive as possible when setting your preferences.

At Pharmaseekers we do a lot of behind the scenes work to try to make sure the locum job offers you see are current and still needed. However, there are still some occasions when we might not have the most up to date information about a certain job. The company might have covered it themselves only moments ago or they may have forgotten to tell us they no longer need the cover. Sending your offers to the company to finalise allows us to make sure you’re not booked for a shift that’s no longer needed.

In short, No.

When you register with us, we will point out the direct clause of our Terms and Conditions before you agree to them. Companies and locums adhering to the direct clause is what allows us to provide and maintain a vast array of locum job opportunities. It’s nothing unusual and is considered standard practice when working with agencies. Simply put, if your first booking and/or introduction to a company was facilitated and arranged via Pharmaseekers then all future work you complete for that company must come via Pharmaseekers. Even one locum working directly with a single company we have introduced them to is detrimental to our business and impacts the service we provide to all our locum and pharmacy business users. If you are found to have breached our Terms and Conditions we will have to close your Pharmaseekers account and cease providing you with our service.

We’ll be here with full support whilst you start your journey with Pharmaseekers. This includes letting you know what companies look for in a locum. We ask for and feed constructive criticism back to our locums as most pharmacy businesses look for the same qualities in their locums. Being made aware of potential areas of improvement can benefit your future practice. Locums who display the below qualities usually generate very positive feedback from the businesses they locum for.

• Punctuality

• Reliability

• Approachability

• Proactivity

On our locum job offers, we will indicate to you if the customer has already rejected a particular rate for that job. It will list what was rejected and when it was rejected. This information will allow you to better understand the customer’s position and assist you in making well informed booking offers.

There are no rules against working with more than one agency. Our only advice is to be confident in your own organisation. It’s safe to assume that different agencies work in different ways. So if you are giving your dates to more than one company, make sure you’re fully aware of how they all work to avoid any possibility of double bookings.