The importance of health workforce for the health care systems has gained significance and is currently considered a pressing issue worldwide. Pharmacists play a vital part in the delivery of health care in a sense that they are responsible for ensuring the safe, effective and rational use of medicines. The pharmacist occupation across the world is in the midst of an evolution. Increased numbers of medicine therapies, the growing needs of the aging but more knowledgeable population, the need for improved medicine management and the changing health care landscape are all influential reasons for pharmacists to assume new (patient care) roles.

In the developing countries including India, the pharmacy and the community pharmacist is the most accessible or even the main source of medicines and health care advice and services. Many people with trivial and minor common illnesses initially visit pharmacies to seek medicine therapy and health care advice. Community pharmacists are the first persons in most cases to be consulted by patients to seek health care services. Increasingly the roles of pharmacists are growing, moving from simply compounding and dispensing of medicines and expanding to patient care and experts on medicines.

Pharmacists represent the third health care professional group in the world. The changing health care landscapes mentioned above requires that proper attention is given to the pharmacy workforce. Accurate information regarding current pharmacy workforce is essential in making the informed decisions and recommendations regarding the creation of a workforce that is needed for the future.

The Indian scenario
Pharmacy profession is regulated by the Pharmacy Act 1948. After the enforcement of provisions of the Pharmacy Act 1948, pharmacists working in practice settings must have a pharmacist registration certificate issued by the state in which they wish to practice. In spite of existence of this regulation for more than 60 years not much information is available on pharmacy workforce, number of active registered pharmacists and their practice status across our country.

In an era of wide on-line database facilities, registered pharmacist on-line database is not available at national level (central register) and at state registers barring a few States (viz. Kartataka, Tamil Nadu and Maharasthra). The register at the state pharmacy councils is not updated in relation to migration, changes in profession, practising status (practising, non-practising, community or hospital pharmacists), age and gender distribution, and academic qualifications. According to Pharmacy Council of India and data available from record of Central Bureau of Health Intelligence: National Health Profile, GOI, 2010, there were 655801 pharmacists registered with various states in January 2010 (Table 1).

The ratio of the registered pharmacists to population varies widely between states (Table1). Table 1 shows that states like Karnataka, Maharasthra, and Tamil Nadu have much higher pharmacist to population ratios (one pharmacist per around 1000 or less people) whereas there is very low population coverage in states like Assam, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh.  Even within region (North, South, East and West) there are large differences between states in the numbers of pharmacists available.  The practice setting distribution of pharmacists indicates that in India 55 per cent of pharmacists work in the community pharmacies and another 20 per cent in hospital pharmacies (Source: Global pharmacy study, FIP, 2006).

Shortage of  skilled pharmacists
When population figures of Indian census 2011 are taken into consideration, there is one pharmacist for every 1845 people in India. Compared to this the world average is around one pharmacist per 2941 people and WHO average for industrial countries is  one pharmacist per 2300 people. Data on public sector service providers reveal that about 13.7 per cent  of the primary health centres (PHCs) were without a pharmacist (Source: GOI, Bulletin in Rural Statistics in India, 2006).

Despite India having a comparatively high ratio of pharmacist to population, the real number of skilled pharmacy workforce is probably lower due to migration, non-practicing pharmacists (academic, industrial and administrative positions) in register, and non diploma holder pharmacists.

The major issues
The first concern is the lack of comprehensive data on registered practicing pharmacist in India which indicates a gap in pharmacist human resource policy. The second is the mal-distribution of pharmacists in many states resulting in service provision by unskilled and untrained personnel. And finally issue of future role of pharmacists in the greater system of health care provision is central to developing an optimistic outlook on the demand and image of pharmacists.

Conclusion
To date, there has been no comprehensive demographic profile of current pharmacists. There is shortage of pharmacists in many states. This has probably created an environment which is favourable for unqualified personnel to take over. However, a detailed analysis of current and future human resource issues in pharmacy practice is not available in literature. In addition, only a little information has been gathered on whether pharmacists’ current education and training are sufficient to ensure that they are safely and effectively dispensing medicines. Therefore, systematic research of pharmacy workforce is crucial for dealing with human resource issues in pharmacy (both policies and strategies) in India.