From Mr A. C. Ferguson, MRPharmS
SIR,—Your correspondents Gartside and Abrahams (PJ, December 9, pp856-7) again highlight the perennial problems of the lack of pharmacists seeking management appointments and the lack of sufficient remuneration to offer realistic salaries. Each year our negotiators attempt to extract more money and each year they are rebuffed. Each year as contractors, we see our profits fall, profits that need to be made to be reinvested in our businesses. Each year individual contractors voice their annoyance with the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee through the columns of the pharmaceutical press. And so it goes on. To me there is only one way to forward our dissent to the Government and that is collectively, as so many other organisations have done in the past, so that not only the Government but also the general public are made aware of what is happening to their National Health Service.
So on a Sunday why do we not all (pharmacists and their staff) have a jolly nice day out to London and draw attention to ourselves and our plight? I will tell you why we will not. Because we are all too apathetic.
A. C. Ferguson Cradley Heath, West Midlands