The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 266 No 7152 p815-820
June 16, 2001

  RPM
  In-store pharmacies
  Pharmacy medicines
  Patient packs
  The Profession
  Future of pharmacy
  Coronary heart disease
  Influenza
  Checking technicians
  Dianette
  Paracetamol
  Monitored dosage systems
  Disillusioned youth
  Code of Ethics
  SGM
  Disposal of medicines
  Separate register
  Onlooker
  The Journal

In-store pharmacies

Professionals, not shopkeepers

From Mr M. J. Allen, MRPharmS

Gurvinder Bhatia (PJ, May 26, p718) obviously has the impression that pharmacists who work in supermarkets are incompetent and unfit to be members of his profession. He asks: “What happens when they face a prescription for a truss, catheter or complex dressings?” Well, we would act in the same way as a pharmacist who works in an independent pharmacy.

It may come as a surprise, but I did not undergo a shortened, simplified, “supermarket only” pharmacy degree but received the same level of training as all pharmacists. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society clearly agrees as it saw fit to add me to the register.

It is unfortunate that his local supermarket pharmacy is closed “at least once a month” because of the lack of a pharmacist but I imagine if he added up the number of hours it is open during a month, it would far exceed any independent pharmacy’s opening hours in the same period. Therefore it will be providing pharmaceutical services over a wider range of hours.

I am in charge of my pharmacy, not ruled by a “meat counter manager”. It would be wrong for a company to try to instruct its employee pharmacists how to act professionally and my company never does this.

In questioning the quality of the services provided, Mr Bhatia is questioning the ability of the pharmacists to offer those services. How then does he explain what happens when a locum does one day in an independent pharmacy, then the next day in a supermarket? Do they become incompetent overnight or is it a gradual thing caused by exposure to supermarket air?

Pharmacists should not be supporting themselves by artificially inflating the prices of medicines. As a profession (and, yes, supermarket pharmacists are part of the profession), we should be negotiating proper remuneration for the professional services and advice we offer. Only then can we be treated as professionals, rather than as shopkeepers, an image that all pharmacists have.

Mark Allen
Hereford

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