Guest blog – locum governance

From time to time we offer our pages to partners. Here Seán Webb of Locate a Locum discusses the importance of ensuring compliance.

In such a highly regulated industry, where lives are on the line, compliance is key to both pharmacists and hiring managers. We’ve recently seen stories of fake doctors working within the NHS, putting institutional reputations and lives at risk.

Pharmacy owners, hiring managers and locum coordinators place a huge degree of trust in the agencies that they use to fill shifts, but where does the responsibility lie for ensuring that workers hold the required documentation and have amassed the desired experience? Is the agency model transparent enough?

Locate a Locum’s robust compliance methods have ensured transparency, thus changing the traditional recruitment model.

We do not let anyone register on our booking platform unless we can first verify the GPhC or PSNI/PSI number that the individual has claimed to own. This process has ensured that only registered pharmacists can access our booking platform and only then can they begin to build a profile that is visible to employers. That’s a very important factor to us, we empower employers to view the profile of those whom apply for shifts within their pharmacy.

After we approve someone’s account, we then embark upon a CPD-focused, document gathering exercise to prove that said pharmacists hold the qualifications they claim to have. Depending on the hiring pharmacy, they require a variety of specific qualifications. Some insist that pharmacists have their Dementia Friend Training certificate, others insist that locums have their Repeat Dispensing accreditations. We require all pharmacists to have an up-to-date DBS or police check before we allow them to work through us.

As pharmacists build their profile, they store documentation within their accounts so that their experience is as transparent as possible for hiring managers to see. By doing so, we give power to the hiring pharmacy and locum coordinator to decide on who to hire.

The final bit, and most recently developed piece of our technology with regards to compliance, is our new facial and document recognition software. Before any pharmacist can apply for their first shift, they will take a photograph of their documentation, using their web cam or telephone camera. They then take a photograph/selfie and our technology can verify the identity of the locum, in correlation with the proof of identity that they have provided.

The result of our checking processes and the technology that we have invested tens of thousands of pounds in, is that the hiring manager can choose the pharmacist of their choosing with the certainty that they are who they say that they are, and that they carry the necessary qualifications and experience. Locate a Locum’s compliance checks and pharmacy empowerment means that the best pharmacists gain work.

Our booking platform and its built-in compliance features mean that hiring managers are booking pharmacists directly in less than one minute, without the added cost and time created by traditional agencies.

Interested? Find out more at www.locatealocum.com

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