From Mr S. A. Wheatley, MRPharmS
SIR,—Ever since that fateful day when I said to the careers adviser, "I want to be a chemist", I have been proud to be associated with an honourable profession. Throughout my long career, I have strived to conduct myself in a professional manner and I have embraced the requirements of our professional Code of Ethics. My interactions with customers, patients and support staff have been of a high professional standard and I have applied my art to the highest level of professionalism. In short, I have been a professional.
But has it all been a delusion? We are now informed that pharmacy is not a profession and that pharmacies are classified as suppliers of goods, not professional services. That impact of the 1976 Competition Act is perpetuated by the new1998 Act. Despite the Society's efforts to get pharmacy reclassified as a profession, it remains a goods supplier under the new Act. Can we be reassured that the Society's efforts were robust? Which body of "grey suits" was or is responsible for this grave error of judgment? Where was the public debate at the relevant times?
My dictionary defines a pharmacist as one skilled in pharmacy and legally entitled to sell drugs and poisons. A profession is defined as employment requiring some degree of learning. Much to my dismay, I have not been able to find a cross reference between "pharmacy/pharmacist" and "profession".
The consultation document on a new Code of Ethics was entitled "Pharmacists' ethics and professional performance". Part 2 of that document proposes "Standards of professional performance" and refers to "professional services" and "professional competence". But to what end if pharmacy is not a profession? Furthermore it seems that our Professional (that word again!) Standards Directorate is to make our new code "fit" this anomalous situation. I detect an urgent need to revisit the original designation and to fight vigorously to have it revoked. Then we can devise and agree a Code of Ethics that is purely professional in its derivation.
Tbe implications of this iniquity are far-reaching. If pharmacy is not a profession then the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain is not a professional body and pharmacists are not (health) professionials. The Code of Ethics becomes merely a set of rules of a trade association and, as such, cannot be applied to reinforce the Government's clinical governance programme and may not be enforceable in law.
Is this the source of all our ills? I think we should be told.
Stan Wheatley
Blandford Forum, Dorset
Mrs SUSAN SHARPE (Director of Professional Standards, Royal Pharmaceutical Society) replies: It is not correct to interpret the Competition Act's provisions as establishing that pharmacy is not a profession. It does not appear in the list of professional roles that enjoy special status under the Act. But that list is not in any way to be taken as defining whether or not an occupation is a profession. The courts, in cases throughout the last century, have consistently accepted that pharmacy is a profession, and there has been no challenge to that status.