The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 266 No 7148 p675-678
May 19, 2001

  Technician registration
  Code of Ethics
  Health promotion
  Working conditions
  Resale price maintenance
  The Society
  The Journal
  Coronary heart disease

Technician registration

No sound case yet made

From Mr J. Ferguson, FRPharmS

In my nearly 40 years of experience in pharmacy administration, I heard at meetings and read in documents many non sequiturs. None, however surpassed that in your leading article “To check or not to check” (PJ, May 5, p607). The Society has published guidance on standard operating procedures (SOPs), you write, and because of this you conclude, for some unfathomable reason, that the Society should take responsibility for the accreditation and registration of technicians. Where is the link?

I have, for many years, promoted the adequate training of all pharmacy support staff to enable pharmacists to delegate appropriate tasks and so free their time to discharge the responsibilities only they can properly undertake, including the pharmaceutical assessment of all prescriptions as defined in the SOP document.

I welcome the move towards SOPs, a development of the “protocol” mentioned in section A.1(f) of the draft Code of Ethics in relation to the sale of medicines by the trained assistants to whom this task is delegated. The Society has not, however, so far as I know, considered it necessary itself to accredit the courses for medicines counter assistants, far less to register them. Section A.2(a) of the draft code makes it clear that an identifiable pharmacist may be accountable for “all activities of non-pharmacists involved in the provision of pharmacy services” and this is repeated in the introduction to Part 3, which also makes it clear that pharmacists must ensure that they and other members of staff “are competent to perform the tasks required”.

So the accountability for both the service and the competence of those to whom tasks are delegated lies, as it should, with the pharmacist. One can see the logic of the Society, with other major pharmacy organisations, being involved in discussions leading to decisions on content of courses for members of pharmacy staff to whom specific tasks may be delegeted at the professional discretion of a pharmacist who will carry the responsibility and be accountable for the quality of the specific service. Thus, in my view, no sound case has yet been made for the registration of pharmacy technicians, who are not accountable for anything.

If a case is eventually evinced, I remain absolutely convinced that the registration authority should not be the Society, which is not just a registration body. It is also a professional body with a chartered object “to ... safeguard and promote the interests of the members in the exercise of the profession of pharmacy”. To seek also to promote the interest of technician would, in my view, introduce a conflict of interest that would eventually lead to the break-up of the Society, weakening it irreparably. I realise that the break-up of the Society is the policy of a few members of the Council who have yet to explain why pharmacists, in addition to fees to their registration body, would wish to pay fees to an organisation with voluntary membership, when the National Pharmaceutical Association would no doubt consider offering personal membership for individual pharmacists, for access to its wide range of services. I believe that the majority of members will oppose the break-up of the Society. The Treasurer should certainly budget for some special general meetings to test the position if the Council are unwise enough to suggest going down that road.

Incidentally, I consider the “checking” issue that you raise in the leader to be a red herring. The current Code of Ethics requires a pharmacist to see every prescription and to decide then the procedure to be followed in the dispensing of each. There is no requirement for a final check by a pharmacist, who is free to decide, in assessing a prescription, the tasks that can properly be delegated to support staff he or she considers to be competent to undertake, including the assembly, labelling and checking.

John Ferguson
Haywards Heath

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