New breaks could mean pharmacies ‘close for lunch’

MEDIA RELEASE

30 March 2009

New breaks could mean pharmacies ‘close for lunch’

Changes to the Employment Relations Act due to come into force on Wednesday could mean that some pharmacies will have to close their doors for periods during the day, to allow the pharmacist to have a statutory break.

Under the Medicines Act a pharmacy must be operated with the ‘immediate supervision and control of a pharmacist’. This means that where there is only one pharmacist working and that pharmacist is an employee, the pharmacy will need to close during the period when the pharmacist is taking a lunch break. This situation is not uncommon in small pharmacies.

“This problem arose because when the law was passed by the Labour Government, no one considered the legal obligations imposed on pharmacists by the Medicines Act” says Pharmacy Guild Chief Executive Annabel Young.

“We raised this issue with the previous Ministers of Health and Labour under the last Government. Their response was that the pharmacist did not need to leave their place of work during the statutory break. This ignored the impossibility of the pharmacist being on a ‘break’ while meeting the statutory obligation to supervise and control the pharmacy. Unless there is a change in the law it is not clear how this problem can be resolved” says Ms Young.

ENDS

Included with this media release: Letter from Hon Trevor Mallard to Annabel Young at the Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand dated 23 September 2008.
Letter_from_Hon_Trevor_Mallard.pdf

Notes: Medicines Act 1981
42A Every pharmacy must be under supervision of pharmacist
• No person may operate any pharmacy that is not for the time being under the immediate supervision and control of a pharmacist.

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