ABSTRACT
Community Pharmacy Limited is a very busy pharmacy serving a large local community and providing all the necessary services. To prevent a backlog of prescriptions, the technicians have to work overtime supporting the two pharmacists. Overtime is arranged by the pharmacy manager in consultation with the supervisor. There is no input from the pharmacists or the technicians. Recently, extending the opening hours of the nearby medical center resulted in a large influx of prescriptions. To keep overtime under control, the pharmacy manager restricted the number of available hours for overtime. Prescriptions could not be cleared on time, and they accumulated for days. Patients were complaining. The manager did not take the complaints seriously, and the pharmacists threatened to walk out if the issue was not resolved. The area
manager intervened and instructed the pharmacy manager to allow the staff to arrange overtime within the allocated budget.
