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

Checking technicians

The end of the pharmacist

From Mr J. F. Bannister, MRPharmS

Wake up! Do we not realise that technician self-checking will immediately render 80 per cent of pharmacists who do not own their own business unemployed? Academic professors, no doubt well meaning, will not be affected.

When one goes to court, one employs a solicitor, not a clerk; when one visits the doctor’s consulting room one expects a doctor, not a receptionist. Likewise, when one goes to a pharmacy to consult, one expects to have access to a pharmacist, not a technician. We are “on station” to provide our many consultational skills and knowledge, particularly at the point when a prescription is checked, at a well known and well distributed chain of locations, called pharmacies, ideally situated to serve the community.

This chain should form the bedrock of the extended role, and future services and roles should be based on it. Why change such an ideal system? Why not build on its strength? Let us not be conned into voting ourselves into extinction. Let us be clear. Technician self-checking would mark the beginning of the end of pharmacy, and the end of the pharmacist.

John Bannister
Colne, Lancashire

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