Pharmacy Rush: can you dispense on time in this video game?

By Ben Lee
Have you ever wanted to show friends or family what it’s like to work at a pharmacy? Well now you can, as university students have developed a video game to recruit new pharmacists.
Working with Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust (NLaG), undergraduates in Grimsby spent a year designing Pharmacy Rush to demonstrate how to look after virtual patients in a ward or at a dispensary to help drive recruitment for the profession.
Rachel Craven, pharmacy business, service and performance manager at NLaG, said the game is “absolutely fantastic and I can’t wait for people to play it” after she worked with the BA Game Design students at University Centre Grimsby – you can play the game yourself here.

Read more: Teen tech whizz hailed ‘amazing’ by contractors after ‘maximising their profits’
The undergraduates worked for free on the project alongside their degree, and programme leader Maxwell Stringer said it “was a no brainer” for his cohort to “create a live industry brief and have a real impact within the community and NHS”.
Thinking of new ways to interest people in pharmacy and “help promote career opportunities for our local community”, Craven came up with the concept to try and address the demand for pharmacists who “are in short supply” across the UK.
A 2022 NHS England survey of community pharmacies found an average 16% vacancy rate for pharmacists across integrated care systems (ICSs), and the same survey revealed 65% of community pharmacist contractors said it was “very difficult” to fill pharmacist vacancies.
“Exceeded our expectations”
Craven said engaging students at local careers events “can be challenging when competing against other career stands”, but the game has been developed so students can play it on a computer, mobile, or tablet outside of these events as well.
Pharmacy Rush has been designed to show potential pharmacists how a team operates on a ward caring for four patients with a doctor, or at a dispensary completing as many prescriptions as possible directly to patients over the counter.

It's all done under timed conditions and is accompanied by suitably jaunty elevator music that feels familiar to what you hear waiting in line on your 8am phone calls to your GP.
Simon Priestley, chief pharmacist at NLaG, revealed that pharmacists and pharmacy technicians at NLaG gave feedback during the game’s development to ensure it was as realistic as possible, and the finished product has now “exceeded our expectations” in showing what a day in the life of a pharmacy is like.
Read more: Opinion: We need to include more Black women in pharmacy leadership roles
Harmony Wolfe, who was art director for the project whilst completing her third year of studies, created visuals inspired by the game Overcooked and Asian-inpsired retailer KENJI, and was grateful for the experience ahead of studying for a master’s in indie game development as she had “never worked on something this scale before”.
While the video game has been simplified to just these two tasks, the time pressures and teamwork hint at two important aspects of the role as the game has different obstacles that may get in the way of you completing tasks easier than anticipated.

In the Ward level, if you ask the wrong question to the doctor – such as asking for gossip or if they want to go out after work – you lose points and even after picking up the correct prescription, sometimes you need to check a patient’s blood test to see if they allergic to one of the six pills available.
When working on the Dispensary level, the time pressure intensifies by needing to drag the correct number of pills to each jar a patient collects from, but the timer differs per patient and new customers appear before you may have finished.
Read more: C+D’s Big Debate: Is community pharmacy a good career choice for women?
If you are too slow and don’t complete an order, a flurry of unhappy emojis display as you lose points, far less exciting than the green pharmacy plus signs that appear when you complete a task.
It was the first time Fin Rohrbasser, a second-year student who was project manager for Pharmacy Rush, had been involved in a game like this and he said he was “very happy with the finished product”.

Stringer added that the group had created “something that they can all be very proud of” and Priestley agreed it has “been a really positive collaboration”.
The game will used for the first time at a local careers events on July 10 at Grimsby Auditorium, and Priestley said it will be used at Manchester’s Clinical Pharmacy Congress North event on November 1-2 to showcase the game outside of careers events.
To deal with recruitment issues, the NHS announced in their long term workforce plan back in June 2023 that they wanted to offer a 29% increase in pharmacist training by 2028/29 from 3,338 to 4,307 places.
What are your thoughts? Comment below and let us know. Or Email haveyoursay@chemistanddruggist.co.uk with any queries
Please sign in or register for FREE
If you are a registered user on C+D Community, please sign in