The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7188 p311-320
9 March 2002

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PSNC promises to treat conference resolutions more seriously than in past

Local pharmaceutical committees have been given an undertaking that the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee will take resolutions passed at the LPC representatives' conference more seriously than LPC representatives believe has been the case in the past.

Following criticism of past treatment of LPC conference resolutions, PSNC executive chairman, Barry Andrews, told this year's LPC representatives' conference in London on 4 March that he was picking up a sense of dissatisfaction with the PSNC's actions on past resolutions and the way it communicated what it had done. "We need to respond in a more joined up way," he said.

PSNC chief executive, Sue Sharpe, added: "We will make sure that we take note of points that are made in the way we respond to today's resolutions.

Their comments came after criticism of the PSNC's report on progress with resolutions from the 2001 conference.

Imran Khan (Redbridge and Waltham Forest) said that 10 of the 19 resolutions from last year's conference appeared to have been left on the shelf. In only one case did the PSNC report that it had completed the action called for.

"These are our resolutions," Mr Khan reminded the conference.

He specifically criticised the PSNC for its responses to motions which called for co-operative working with the Department of Health and the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists to develop a strategy for patients being discharged from hospitals and for the development of a strategy which focused pharmacy practice on public health.

"Perhaps the PSNC does not feel that public health is an important issue," Mr Khan said. "If the PSNC cannot, who will lead pharmacy on public health," he asked. "This is crucial to Government plans."

Mr Khan also criticised the PSNC's claim in its response to the other motion that hospital discharge issues were not a national priority.

"I conducted a repeat prescription pilot," Mr Khan said. "Some of the most serious mistakes I saw were after hospital discharge when new medicines were not correctly included in the repeat prescription. It is a national priority," he asserted.

Alan Castell (Barking and Havering) took the criticism further with reference to a resolution which called on the PSNC to negotiate a national scheme for community pharmacist prescribing, in particular of emergency contraception. "No community pharmacists are providing EHC on the NHS," Mr Castell claimed. "What did the PSNC do on this issue. A great opportunity has been missed."

Defending its actions, Mrs Sharpe said that Mike King, the PSNC's head of professional development, was working on smoking cessation, coronary heart disease and diabetes — all public health issues. It was wrong to assume that these were not part of mainstream PSNC policy.

Mr King said that elements of the resolution on public health were being taken into account in the development of the new community pharmacy contract.

Comment, p310

Further reports, pp319–20