Most owners know the hourly figure an agency quotes. Far fewer have modelled what agency-only cover costs across a full year, which is the number that decides whether doing anything about it is worth the effort.
This is a method, not a claim about your business. Put your own figures in.
Step 1 — count the days, not the shifts
Pull twelve months of cover from your rota. Count days covered by someone who is not your own staff, split into:
- planned absence (annual leave, training)
- unplanned absence (sickness, emergencies)
- structural gaps (a vacant post, a branch with no permanent pharmacist)
Most independents are surprised here. The planned share is usually larger than the felt experience, because unplanned cover is memorable and planned cover is routine.
Step 2 — find the real hourly delta
Take the agency's charge rate and subtract what the same person would cost booked directly. The gap is the margin plus whatever fees sit alongside it. Check the contract for:
- short-notice or out-of-hours uplifts
- weekend and bank holiday multipliers
- minimum shift lengths that round a 6-hour need up to 8
- introduction or temp-to-perm fees if you later employ someone
The headline rate rarely tells the whole story. The contract does.
Step 3 — multiply, then add the costs that do not appear on an invoice
Annual delta = (days covered) × (hours per day) × (hourly delta).
Then add the operational costs that never reach the finance system:
- Time spent arranging cover. If a manager spends 45 minutes per booking across 80 bookings, that is 60 hours a year.
- Unfilled shifts. A day with reduced service or a closed consultation room has a revenue cost as well as a patient one.
- Continuity. A locum who has worked your branch before needs less supervision and makes fewer errors than one who has never seen your SOPs. That difference is real even though nobody invoices for it.
Step 4 — model the alternative honestly
The alternative is not "no agency". It is "agency as a backstop". A realistic model has three tiers:
1. Your own bank. People who have worked the branch, know the SOPs, and can be invited first. 2. The wider pharmacy community. A shift posted to a pharmacy-specific audience, booked direct. 3. Agency. For the shifts the first two did not fill.
Assume the first two never reach 100%. If they cover 60–70% of routine cover within a few months, the annual delta on that share is what the change is worth. Compare it against the platform or process cost of running it.
What to watch for
- Do not model the first month as if it were the steady state. A bank takes time to build; the first few postings will fill more slowly than the tenth.
- Do not count a saving twice. If a locum moves from agency-booked to directly booked, you save the margin, not the whole rate.
- Keep the agency relationship civil. You will still need them for the hard shifts, and a bridge burned in April is expensive in December.
A soft conclusion
The point of this exercise is rarely "stop using agencies". It is knowing the number, so the decision about routine cover is a commercial one rather than a habit.
If you want to see what direct posting and a preferred pool look like in practice, book a demo and we will walk through it against your own branches.
