The numbers of placements are few, and the problems experienced by students are compounded by the lack of a uniform system for advertising and allocating posts. Students do not know the best time to apply for vacation posts and what to send as application information. If a student applied in January, they might not get a response until Easter. During this period, more readily available and better organised summer work is offered in a variety of community pharmacy schemes, such as those run by the large multiples. Hospital vacation placements are often unstructured, with no means of recording any information and knowledge gained.
Many pharmacy students study away from home and wish to return to their home area to work.
Information about vacation work in hospitals near their home is often not readily available. Preregistration information manuals are distributed too late to be of any help in this area. These problems leave pharmacy students frustrated and unlikely to make the effort to apply to an anonymous person in a hospital about which they know little. Those students who are determined to gain some hospital experience will persevere, but hospital pharmacy is losing a valuable opportunity to attract students who would normally never consider hospital pharmacy as a career. When it comes to attracting undergraduates to vacation placements and preregistration posts, much can be learned from the large community pharmacy chains.