The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7194 p543
20 April 2002

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Letters to the Editor

Pharmacy practice

No more outmoded traditions

From Mr B. Shooter, MRPharmS

The pharmacy manpower crisis to which Graham Phillips refers in his Broad Spectrum article (PJ, 30 March, p430) will be eased to some extent this summer when a thousand or so newly registered pharmacists start seeking employment.

One of my roles at present is to have the privilege of working with pharmacy students at the School of Pharmacy, London University. These highly motivated, intelligent, hard-working and well-trained young people will have no problem in delegating the technical aspects of the dispensing process to their technicians.

I hope they will then be free to take on the pharmacist's true role which I describe as being "guardians of the nation's medicines", advising members of their communities and their fellow health care professionals on all aspects of drug usage.

Attempts to keep pharmacists, especially those recently qualified, tied to the dispensing bench will be met with increasing frustration and hostility.

Employers, in particular, have a duty to ensure that systems are in place to facilitate the practice of the profession by pharmacists in accordance with their training rather than following outmoded traditions.

Barry Shooter
Romford, Essex

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