Pharmacy Services Assistant

On a pharmacy services assistant apprenticeship course, you’ll help provide various pharmacy and medicine services.

A pharmacist or another responsible healthcare professional supervises a pharmacy services assistant to provide patients, the public, and other professional healthcare teams with various pharmacy and medical services. You will help in the delivery of pharmacy services in a variety of pharmacy settings in this role.

You will help with the procurement, preparation, and assembly of medicines and products and their delivery to patients and other healthcare professionals. You will also advise patients to get the most out of their medications.

You will order, receive, store, dispose of, and return medicines. You will also learn about healthy living choices and screening services.

What you’ll learn

On a pharmacy services assistant apprenticeship course, you’ll learn to:

• Assemble the required products, do an in-process accuracy check, and distribute the things.
• Operate in line with the law and organisational rules.
• As allowed, provide proper advice on supplied medicines and products and their storage and disposal.
• Work within the pharmacy’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs).
• Behave in line with organisational and systemic governance.
• Recognise and adhere to pharmaceutical regulatory, legal, and ethical obligations.
• You may maintain and improve your skills and knowledge by participating in development programmes. Maintain a record of your progress and actively prepare for and take part in evaluations.
• Effectively communicate with the public, caregivers, and other health and social care professionals to determine their needs while keeping information private.
• Manage information on individuals and/or patients per local and national laws (record, report, and preserve data).
• Utilise pharmacy information technology systems and other information technology resources in line with legal requirements and organisational norms.
• Make pharmaceutical patients and their safety your top focus.
• If required, exercise your judgement and send service users to another team member, such as a general practitioner, a healthcare professional, or a manufacturer.
• Use Standard Operating Procedures to be safe within the confines of your work.
• Put in place workplace health and safety policies.

Entry requirements

You’ll usually need:

• some GCSEs, usually including English and maths, or equivalent, for an intermediate apprenticeship.
• Apprentices without level 2 English and maths will need to achieve this before taking the end-point assessment.

Assessment methods

The End Point Assessment comprises three distinct assessment methods: 

• Knowledge Test 
• Simulated Observation with question and answer 
• Professional Discussion

Duration, level, subjects and potential salary upon completion

Apprenticeship standard

More information about the Level 2 Pharmacy Services Assistant Apprenticeship standard can be found here.

Apprenticeship end point assessment

For more information about the End Point Assessment Process, please read the Institute of Apprenticeships’ information page