International Pharmacy Technician Day | News

Today marks International Pharmacy Technician Day - a day to showcase and appreciate our pharmacy technician colleagues across the trust and all other pharmacy sectors.

Pharmacy technicians are a vital part of the pharmacy workforce with roles ranging from operational support and management within the dispensary to work in the pharmaceutical industry.

They can train “on the job” by undertaking a two-year apprenticeship. Here at Royal Surrey, we have five pre-registration pharmacy technicians rotating through multiple sectors of pharmacy within their training programme.

Once qualified, our pharmacy technicians are able to perform high-quality medicines reconciliations on the wards and conduct final accuracy checks on the prescriptions leaving the dispensary.

Throughout their careers, pharmacy technicians can choose to progress to higher-level leadership roles or build on their clinical knowledge to specialise in their chosen field.

Nadia Hunter, Chief Pharmacy Technician Clinical Trials Operations Manager said: “Pharmacy technicians play an integral part in the team with varied roles across the department. This can be based in dispensary, procurement, on the ward, aseptics, oncology (day unit) or in clinical trials and research like myself. 

“For me, becoming a technician, and getting a qualification “on the job” was always the best option as I didn’t want to go to university. 

“I have been able to progress in my career and spent the last eight years working in research, setting-up and delivering clinical trials involving medicines and managing the pharmacy clinical trials service. 

“Not all of us are directly patient facing all the time, but the work we do on a daily basis behind the scenes is vital in making the service, as a whole, function.  

“Career pathways for technicians are now also so diverse, and you can specialise in an array of different areas making this an attractive and interesting career choice.”