The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 266 No 7153 p852-856
June 23, 2001

  Medicines promotions
  GlaxoSmithKline
  Monitired dosage systems
  The Profession
  NHS
  Parallel trading
  Dressings
  Checking technicians
  Code of Ethics
  SGM
  Onlooker
  The Journal

Checking technicians

Missing the point

From Mr M. D. Williams, MRPharmS

John Bannister (PJ, June 16, p819) misses the point of self-checking technicians. When one goes to court, one instructs a barrister: however one would not expect that barrister to source and prepare the case notes, that task being carried out by a clerk of chambers. The barrister would be expected to exercise his professional expertise in the courtroom in the certain knowledge that the preliminary work has been carried out under his direction to a predetermined level of competence.

The real value of suitably qualified self-checking pharmacy technicians, working under a strict protocol and still under the supervision of a pharmacist, would be to free some of the pharmacist’s time to allow him to use his expertise in the application of patient care. In designating such technicians to self-check specified items, the pharmacist can concentrate on counselling patients, safe in the knowledge that another member of staff is competent enough to select, label and package, say, a 7.5cm crepe bandage accurately.

I could not agree more that when one enters a pharmacy, one expects to have access to a pharmacist whom one can consult. This access would surely be enhanced if that professional were not tied to the dispensary bench. For too long, too many members of our profession have denigrated our professional expertise in favour of slavish adherence to the “final check” principles that have undoubtedly held back the profession, certainly in the community sector.

However, a more worrying development is highlighted on page A32 of the same issue. A primary care trust is trying to recruit a “prescribing support technician” to review repeat prescribing systems, carry out prescribing audits and develop the use of general practitioners’ computer systems. At a time when pharmacists have been demonstrating their expertise in advising GPs on just these sorts of areas, is it not perverse that it is being suggested that these roles should be delegated to pharmacy support staff who possess very different skills? Perhaps the PCT in question could explain why it is not recruiting pharmacists to undertake these activities.? Is it because there is a shortage of pharmacists in this, as in all other areas of pharmacy, or because pharmacists charge too much? Yet again, could it be another example of the low regard in which PCTs all too often hold pharmacists? Or indeed is it because too few pharmacists are willing or able to detach themselves from their dispensary benches and the onerous task of checking the linear measurements of crepe bandages?

Mike Williams
Coventry, West Midlands

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