Page 8 - PSUK march 2025 mag (print)

“If we look at the

statement below, we

can work out how many

staff hours we need

and how much money

we have to spend on

dispensing staff hours.”

The practice dispenses 6262 items in the month and has a dispensing fee income of
£14,052.83.

The DSQS guidance indicates a practice requires 75 hours of dispenser time to dispense this
number of items. In other words you will need two FTE dispensers to run this dispensary.

Assuming the number of items dispensed each month remains relatively consistent, it is likely
that the fee income for the year will sit at around £168,000 per year.

Let’s assume that you staff your dispensary in-line with the guidance hours required then a
staff member on the national living wage will cost you gross £26,000 (including employers
contributions) although this will vary if you pay more than the minimum wage and may also
vary if you have a number of part timers but for the sake of this article we can guess a wage
cost of £52 -56K for those two dispensers.
(I apologise if my calculations are inaccurate – I have estimated as best I can using the data
published on wages and contributions from April 2025)

We will of course then want to cover leave etc but even upping our hours to 2.5 FTE our staff
bill should remain at 50 - 55% of the fee income leaving the other 45-50% for your profit.

My rule of thumb has always been that staff costs should where possible not exceed 50% of
your fee income in an ideal scenario. In 2025 it may well be that they creep up to 55% but you
should need to see them much higher.

8 PS Magazine | Countering increased costs

07/02/2025 16:29:12
PSUK march 2025 mag 07-02-2025.indd 8
PSUK march 2025 mag 07-02-2025.indd 8 07/02/2025 16:29:12