From Mr M. R. Gardner, MRPharmS
SIR—In common with several of your recent correspondents, I was saddened, though not surprised, to read the statement of the Society's Director of Professional Standards (PJ, March 11, p390) following publication of the details of the disturbing and tragic case of the death of a baby due to a dispensing error.
To react by questioning whether a majority of the profession should be allowed to retain one of its core professional functions, for which it is uniquely qualified, is as absurd as it is pathetic, and indicates yet again the degree to which pharmacy has lost both direction and confidence.
If, as the expert reports by Dr Cooke and Professor Mackie suggest, there is cause for concern regarding the level of dispensing and compounding skills of graduates entering the profession, then surely any reaction should be directed towards making good such deficiencies in education and training, and not towards penalising the competent majority, by removing from them a unique area of professional expertise, however reduced in demand.
The Society should be telling the schools of pharmacy unequivocally, that, notwithstanding acceptable assessments of teaching quality, their degree courses must produce graduates with competent dispensing skills, if they are to be acceptable for entry to the profession. If necessary, this could be underpinned by formal assessment or examination of these skills in the preregistration year.
The future is in improvement, not abandonment, and in this regard, the alternative suggestion to establish standards for extemporaneous dispensing in community practice is to be welcomed.
I am moved to wonder what impression will have been given by the director's statement to those who jealously guard the areas of professional territory into which the Society, with its extended role/New Age policies, would have us move. Will our apparent readiness to consider abandoning a core professional function, with its implied lack of confidence in the competence of practitioners, support our argument for extended roles, either with the Government, or with those fellow professionals whose co-operation and support we seek? I think not. Indeed, if the Society does decide to pursue a policy of professional self-mutilation, and remove the right of community pharmacists to dispense extemporaneously, it will merely exacerbate the doubts and problems of a chronically insecure profession.
M. R. Gardner Grimsby, Lincolnshire
Mrs SUSAN SHARPE (Director of Professional Standards, Royal Pharmaceutical Society) replies: Following a tragic error of this kind it is essential for a review of the causes to be undertaken so prevention measures can be considered. I have never suggested that all extemporaneous dispensing in community pharmacies should cease. Indeed, I was reported elsewhere as affirming commitment to preserving an essential function. But it would be indefensible for the profession not to seek to learn the lessons of this tragedy and put in place procedures and requirements that will minimise risks for the future. We are working with others to do just that.