The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7173 676-680
10 November 2001

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Letters to the Editor

Pharmacy careers

NHS Careers website outdated

From Mr D. Cripps, MRPharmS

I wholeheartedly endorse the sentiments of Dr Tony D'Emanuele and Dr Rachel Elliott (PJ, 3 November, p647). As schools of pharmacy increase their annual intake of undergraduates, a significant fall in applications can only lead to a decline in the average standard of successful candidates and the trend must be reversed by better and more forward-thinking promotion by our professional body.

In contrast, I was greatly encouraged by the advertisement placed in the same issue of The Journal by NHS Careers. The image portrayed is positive and dynamic, although I do not honestly believe there will be many teenagers on the subscription list of the PJ. I feel the fee would have been better spent on advertising in a more youth-orientated publication rather than preaching to the converted.

The section on pharmacy accessed via the website cited in the advertisement is also quite impressive until, that is, one attempts to obtain "detailed careers information" for phar-macy. The website's answer to the question "What does a Pharmacist do?" in this "detailed" section) should be confined to the Society's museum. The generic job description for both community and hospital pharmacists is hardly the vision of "Pharmacy in the Future", but very much "Pharmacy of the Past". I wonder who advised on the content of this particular page and hope that that the NHS Executive might call upon some rather more enlightened individuals or organisations to replace the history lesson with a true synopsis of the remit of the pharmacist, portraying an image to which most of the profession would aspire and which is more likely to appeal to those seeking a career in health care.

Duncan Cripps
Plymouth, Devon

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