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Pharmacists seek improvement – PPS

JOHANNESBURG, 14 June 2019 – While pharmaceutical services have improved, there is still a need to address skills shortages, according to the 2019 PPS Graduate Professional Index (GPI) results.

Sixty-six percent (66%) of respondents thought that access to pharmaceutical services had improved over the past 20 years, but 62% thought there was a skills shortage facing the industry.

A majority of 93% viewed their client interaction as an opportunity to educate the community about medicine, but 88% thought big chains were drowning the community pharmacist. On the National Health Insurance, 86% did not think that it adequately addresses pharmacists.

“On the whole, pharmacists were in the middle when it came to confidence in their profession in the next five years. This is evident in the results where there has been change, while in the others, such as skills there is still room for improvement,” says Motshabi Nomvete, Technical Marketing Specialist at PPS.

PPS conducted an independent survey of 5,837 members at the beginning of 2019 to gauge their perceptions on a number of issues affecting the Engineering, Accounting, Dental, Legal, Medical, Pharmaceutical and other sector professions.  

The most confident were accountancy (86%), other* (80%), legal (65%) and engineering (60%). Medical professionals (56%) and dental (47%) were at the bottom of the pack.

*Note to the editor: ‘Other’ are business professional, financial sector, computer sciences/IT, education, science and biology, social/community upliftment, urban/rural development, environmental sciences/conservation, arts and literature/academia, government/public service, law enforcement and agriculture/horticulture professions.

About PPS

PPS has more than 150 000 members who enjoy access to a comprehensive suite of financial and healthcare products that are specifically tailored to meet the needs of graduate professionals.

PPS is the largest South African company of its kind, exclusively for graduate professionals, that still embraces an ethos of mutuality, which means that it exists solely for the benefit of its members. Members receive profit allocations based on the qualifying life risk products they hold with PPS. Thus, PPS members with qualifying products could share in the profits of PPS Insurance, PPS Investments, PPS Short-Term Insurance and PPS Healthcare Administrators via annual allocations to the unique PPS Profit-Share Account. In addition, the more products members hold across these PPS businesses, the larger their percentage of earnings through the PPS Cross-Holdings Profit-Share Booster.

PPS membership provides access to the following tried, tested and trusted products and services: PPS Life Insurance, PPS Short-Term Insurance, PPS Financial Advisory, PPS Investments and Profmed Medical Scheme. Visit www.pps.co.za for more information.

PPS is a Licensed Insurer and Financial Services Provider.