How to become a pharmacy support worker

Your main tasks could include:

• Dispensing and supply—Assist in preparing, labelling, and dispensing medicines under the supervision of a pharmacist or pharmacy technician.
• Stock management—Order, receive, check, and maintain medicine stock in dispensaries, wards, or distribution centres.
• Administrative tasks—Update records, prepare labels, answer telephone or in-person queries, and manage documentation.
• Ward-based duties (in hospitals)—Deliver medicines to wards, manage ward stock, check expiry dates, and support timely patient discharges.
• Pharmacy system use—Operate pharmacy computer systems for stock control and dispensing.
• Customer Service—Communicate with patients and healthcare professionals about prescriptions and medication queries within defined competencies.

To succeed as a pharmacy support worker, you'll need to develop a unique set of timeless, high-level skills, known as meta-skills. These are the core abilities that will help you adapt and excel throughout your career.

Self-management

This is about how you manage yourself and your work in a busy, structured environment where accuracy is vital.

• Focusing—Maintaining high levels of accuracy and attention to detail when counting stock, picking medicines, or labelling prescriptions.
• Adapting—Staying calm and organised in a busy dispensary with competing demands, like a phone ringing, a delivery arriving, and a new prescription to process.
• Initiative—Noticing that stock for a common item is running low and reporting it to a pharmacy technician before it runs out.
• Integrity—Strictly following all rules for patient confidentiality, safety procedures, and the secure handling of medicines.

Social intelligence

This is about how you connect with and understand patients and colleagues.

• Communicating—Speaking clearly and politely to patients at the counter or to colleagues on the phone and listening carefully to their requests.
• Feeling—Showing empathy and patience when dealing with a patient who is unwell, anxious, or has questions about their prescription.
• Collaborating—Working closely as part of the team. You must follow instructions from pharmacists and pharmacy technicians accurately and asking for help when you are unsure.
• Leading—Taking responsibility for your own tasks. You could be managing a specific section of the stock room or helping to show new staff the correct procedures.

Innovation

This is about how you approach problems and adapt to new developments.

• Curiosity—Asking questions to understand why procedures are done a certain way, which helps you learn and avoid mistakes.
• Creativity—Suggesting a simple change to the way stock is organised on the shelf to make it easier for the team to find.
• Sense-making—Spotting a recurring problem, such as labels not printing correctly or an item always being out of stock and reporting it clearly.
• Critical thinking—Carefully checking a prescription label against the original prescription. If you spot a difference or error it must be reported it to the pharmacy technician.

You'll work closely with other members of the pharmacy team and wider healthcare staff, including:

• pharmacists
• pharmacy technicians
• other pharmacy support workers
• GP practice staff
• delivery drivers and suppliers

You could work in:

• hospitals
• community pharmacies
• distribution centres
• GP practices
• care homes
• prisons