Members of the United Kingdom Psychiatric Pharmacy group (UKPPG) have voted to establish a College of Mental Health Pharmacists.
The new college will be led by five elected founder members, who are to begin work on a specialist accreditation scheme, which is to be the route to membership of the new college. Once the accredited membership has reached 25 persons, the founder members are to be required to retire from the college and seek membership through the accreditation process. Accreditation is expected to cost around £300.
The outgoing chairman of the UKPPG (Mr David Taylor) told The Journal on October 12 that the decision to establish the college was a "mandate to improve patient care by assuring a uniformly high standard of practice". He said: "Specialist accreditation is wholly in line with the ideals of clinical governance."
Once the accreditation requirements have been drawn up, an information brochure is to be produced and made available. Copies will be sent to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the Royal College of Psychiatrists. All relevant National Health Service trusts and other employers are then to be told about the new system and will be urged to ensure that their pharmacy managers working in mental health become accredited.
The proposal to establish the new college has been under development for some time and the UKPPG is currently negotiating with the College of Pharmacy Practice, which recently announced its intention to set up specialist faculties (PJ, August 7, p190).
More information on the UKPPG and its plans can be found on the internet at www.ukppg.co.uk.