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| Sue Sharpe: Media and Government are attacking self-regulation |
Self-regulation by all health care professions was under threat from the Government,
Mrs Sue Sharpe (director of professional standards, Royal Pharmaceutical Society),
told a meeting on the national pharmacy plan held by Barking and Havering and
Redbridge and Waltham Forest local pharmaceutical committees on October 5.
Mrs Sharpe said that the recently formed UK Council of Health Regulators, which
included the Society, had the potential to evolve into a single regulatory body
run by lay people. The effect of such a single body on pharmacy could be imagined
by considering that there were 43,000 pharmacists but 675,000 nurses.
The Government and the media had used a number of recent cases where self-regulation
had failed in order to attack the basis of self-regulation. The Society was
extremely good at self-regulation and its competent handling of inspections
and complaints had led it to escape much of the flak. However, the recent peppermint
water case (PJ, March 11, p390) had raised questions over the quality of extemporaneous
dispensing and there was a new culture of accountability which was approaching
zero tolerance of error.
Mandatory competence assessment and revalidation would soon be in place for
general medical practitioners and would have to follow for pharmacists. Mrs
Sharpe believed that these were critical for the profession’s future in
the National Health Service and that bids for future service provision would
have to be linked to training for new roles. The quality of the current pharmacy
system was not demonstrable.
Looking at the pharmacy plan, Mrs Sharpe said that the Government was against
the evolution of a two-tier pharmaceutical service, but the funding of improved
practices would come from the erosion of unit fees.
Mr Hemant Patel (secretary, North East London LPCs) said that 11 of the 16 recommendations
submitted by the two LPCs as part of the consultation on the national plan for
the NHS had been incorporated in the pharmacy plan.
Forty pharmacists in the area had received training as smoking cessation counsellors
and each now held individual contracts with the health authority.
“We should be taking our ideas to health authorities and not waiting until
their needs impinge on us,” Mr Patel said.
Mr John D’Arcy (director, National Pharmaceutical Association) described
the pharmacy plan as “like the curate’s egg — good in parts”.
The good parts were the formal recognition of pharmacy’s role in the NHS;
becoming the fourth disposition for NHS Direct; and moving repeat dispensing
from GPs to pharmacy. Medicines management offered the profession a huge opportunity
to control wastage in the NHS drugs budget.
Mr D’Arcy said that the profession had to be flexible and creative in its
response to the plan and to work to strike a balance between the needs of pharmacy
and those of the Department of Health.
Dr Gordon Geddes (head of information technology services, Pharmaceutical Services
Negotiating Committee) said that electronic transmission of prescription data
had first been proposed in 1953. The pharmacy plan envisaged that it would become
a reality by 2004. The Government was proposing to establish three pilots schemes.
The first three bids to meet its criteria by March 31, 2001, would be approved.
The pilots would be completed and evaluated by the end of 2002. Dr Geddes noted
that the Government was not going to pay for the pilots, but it would fund an
independent evaluation.
There were a number of problems with electronic prescription transfer as proposed,
Dr Geddes felt. The introduction of computerised prescribing by GPs had not
delivered quality prescribing and their systems lacked validation techniques.
There was no mention in the pharmacy plan of patient packs and without them
the whole process would not succeed.
The Government’s proposals raised many questions, he said. These included:
Have we been here before; are we doing this simply because computers allow us
to do so; does it simplify the existing process; what is the business case;
and where is the patient benefit?