‘Pharma-SEE!’ is a virtual reality careers resource showcasing pharmacy roles in community, hospital, and general practice.
It provides immersive, accessible experiences to inspire young people across Wales and address limited early exposure to pharmacy careers.
Project aims
- The project was initiated to address limited awareness and understanding of pharmacy careers among young people in Wales. Many students begin pharmacy degrees without prior exposure to real practice, creating risks of disengagement and attrition.
- ‘Pharma-SEE!’ seeks to provide early, equitable, and engaging access to realistic experiences across community, hospital, and general practice settings. By widening participation and supporting informed career choices, the project aligns with national workforce priorities to attract, inspire, and retain the next generation of pharmacy professionals.
How the project began
The project began with a clear focus on widening participation and modernising careers promotion. Initial scoping identified a lack of immersive, accessible resources showcasing pharmacy roles. A partnership was formed with Goggleminds, a specialist VR developer, to translate this vision into an engaging virtual reality experience. Early steps included stakeholder engagement with schools, universities, and pharmacy professionals, alongside governance planning, risk assessment, and pilot testing to ensure the resource was practical, inclusive, and aligned with workforce development priorities across Wales.
Project challenges
Key challenges included limited access to schools at the end of the academic year, technical barriers to VR use across different devices, and the constraints of delivering the project largely as a one-person lead.
Dissemination also proved difficult, particularly in ensuring consistent access across platforms and making the resource available directly to headsets via the Meta Store.
Another challenge was ensuring consistent quality across environments to maximise impact. From these, the team learned the importance of flexibility, stakeholder engagement, and building sustainability plans early to embed the resource into long-term careers promotion strategies.
Project outcomes
The project successfully delivered ‘Pharma-SEE!’, a fully developed virtual reality resource showcasing pharmacy careers in community, hospital, and general practice settings. Early pilot testing demonstrated strong engagement, with students describing the experience as “realistic, immersive, and inspiring.”
Feedback indicated the tool increased awareness of the breadth of pharmacy roles and helped demystify career pathways previously unfamiliar to many.
Although widespread dissemination is still in progress, the project has already achieved national visibility, supporting the Strategic Pharmacy Workforce Plan and is looking to be shared with schools, colleges, and universities across Wales. The resource directly supports widening participation by offering equitable, accessible exposure to pharmacy for students who may have limited work experience opportunities.
For the workforce, the impact lies in attracting and motivating future pharmacy professionals, reducing the risk of attrition during training, and strengthening long-term workforce supply. For patients and services, this translates into a more informed, inspired pipeline of future pharmacists better prepared to meet healthcare needs across diverse settings.
The project has also demonstrated how digital innovation can enhance career promotion in healthcare, laying the foundation for scaling immersive approaches across professions.
A HEIW Intern (Aug. 2025), said:
“PharmaSEE is an exciting and innovative resource that offers immersive and interactive experiences in Pharmacy. It’s an exciting and innovative resource that brings Pharmacy to life. It allows students to explore Pharmacy through realistic simulations, develop essential skills, and build confidence in a safe and engaging environment. This is an exceptional resource for educating and informing the future Pharmacy workforce by helping students discover new possibilities and make informed decisions about their future. Absolutely brilliant!”
Sue Bracegirdle, Future Workforce Manager, HEIW, said:
“It was really useful and enjoyable to be able to use it and further understand how it could transform education and training for registrants to develop skills etc going forward. It’s a great way to raise awareness in such an innovative way and in line with the younger generations IT abilities on what we do as pharmacy professionals.”
Next steps
The next phase centres on innovative dissemination, including direct-to-headset access and web-based hosting to ensure universal availability across devices. This dual approach maximises scalability and equity, enabling learners in any setting to access the resource without technical barriers.
Beyond pharmacy, the model provides a blueprint for immersive careers promotion across other healthcare professions. Future development will explore integration into a national digital careers platform, offering students the opportunity to experience multiple NHS roles virtually, at scale, and on demand, transforming how healthcare careers are promoted and understood.
Find out more about ‘Pharma-SEE!’ and explore opportunities to collaborate or support its future development by contacting heiw.pharmacy@wales.nhs.uk.