A locum who gets rebooked stops competing for every shift. The branch invites them first, the rate conversation gets easier, and the diary fills further ahead. Most of what produces that is unglamorous.
What gets you invited back
Arriving early enough to be useful. Fifteen minutes is enough to find the CD keys, the RP record, the fridge log and the person who knows where things are. A pharmacist who starts on time having already oriented themselves is visibly different from one who starts on time having just arrived.
Working to their SOPs, not yours. Every branch has ways of doing things that look inefficient from outside and usually exist for a reason. If something genuinely looks unsafe, raise it — properly, once, to the right person. Rewriting their workflow for a day creates work after you leave.
Leaving the place findable. Whatever you moved, move back. Whatever you started, either finish it or write down where it stands. The measure is whether tomorrow's pharmacist can pick up without ringing you.
Talking to the team. The staff usually have more influence over whether you come back than the owner does. A pharmacist who learns names and asks how things are normally done gets a very different report than one who does not speak to anyone.
Handling the awkward moment well. An angry patient, a supply problem, a prescription you will not dispense. Branches remember how a locum handled the hard thing far longer than they remember a smooth day.
What gets you quietly dropped
Nobody tells you. You simply stop being offered shifts. The usual causes:
- Late without a call. One text 40 minutes ahead is a different event from arriving 40 minutes late.
- Cancelling close to the day, repeatedly. Once is life; a pattern is a reputation.
- Leaving the CD register or the RP record incomplete.
- Being unreachable between accepting and arriving.
- Treating support staff as assistants rather than colleagues.
Make it easy to book you again
- Keep your availability current, so a branch checking Tuesday sees the truth.
- Keep your credentials in date. An expired indemnity certificate found the day before a shift is a booking cancelled.
- Say yes to the awkward date occasionally. The Saturday nobody wants is how first-call status is earned.
- When a shift goes well, say you would come back. Many pharmacists assume a locum is not interested unless told.
The compounding effect
Five branches that call you first is a different working life from a hundred applications a year. It takes a season, not a week, and it is mostly built out of ordinary days handled properly.
Join free to set your availability, or read how locum rates work.
