There’s something deeply unsettling about watching good people quietly burn out.

I remember visiting one of our partner pharmacies not long ago, the kind where everyone knows your name, the local kids pop in for plasters and lollies, and the pharmacist always remembers what’s going on with your mum’s meds. It felt like the kind of place that held the community together.

But on that particular day, the pharmacist looked… tyred. Not sleepy tyred, not a rough-night tyred , the tyred that sits in your bones.

She smiled because she always does. She asked how things were going, cracked a little joke, and went back to labelling boxes and taking calls from the surgery. But something was off. I stayed back to chat.

“Do you know I haven’t had a lunch break in three weeks?” she said, still typing. “The deliveries are late, half the scripts are urgent, the driver didn’t show, and I’ve got locum shifts stacked back-to-back. Honestly, I don’t know how long I can keep doing this.”

It wasn’t dramatic. It was just honest.

And it wasn’t the first time we have heard it.

A quiet exodus

Across the UK, pharmacists are quietly leaving jobs they once loved. Not because they’re disillusioned with healthcare. Quite the opposite. It’s because they care too much to do it badly.

When you’re running a pharmacy, it’s not just about handing out medicine. It’s about managing endless stock deliveries, taking calls from GPs and care homes, helping confused patients, fixing IT problems, chasing down missing prescriptions, and somehow still having time to counsel someone going through chemo or comfort a panicked parent.

Every second, a pharmacist you speak to will tell you they’re either looking for a new job or thinking about it.

They’re not leaving because they’re bored. They’re leaving because they’re overwhelmed.

Why now?

The pressure hasn’t crept in overnight. But it’s compounded.

More GP referrals. More walk-ins. More reliance on pharmacists for public health advice. And with funding cuts, staffing gaps, and rising expectations, pharmacists are being asked to spin more plates than ever, without dropping a single one.

The result? Good people are burning out in silence. Quietly coping until they can’t.

So, where does Onelivery fit into all this?

We’re not here to be saviours. We’re not here to “transform” your business. We’re here to help you breathe.

When I founded Onelivery UK, it was because I saw how stretched pharmacies were, not just in big cities, but in every corner of the country. Deliveries were a pain point. Not just the logistics, but the unpredictability, the no-shows, the calls from angry patients wondering where their medicine was.

We stepped in not just with vehicles and systems, but with understanding.

We talk to pharmacists before we onboard. We learn their rhythms, their peak hours, and their pain points. We don’t just pick up parcels, we become part of your team. And when something goes wrong (because it does), we don’t disappear behind an email chain. We sort it.

Because if we can give a pharmacist one less thing to worry about, one less call, one fewer stress headache, that’s a win for us.

And for patients, it means their medicine shows up when and where it should. No fuss. No fear.

If this sounds like something your pharmacy needs We’d love to talk. Not in a salesy, pushy way. Just a real conversation.

Because the truth is, pharmacies are the backbone of healthcare. And right now, they need more support than slogans.