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	The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 268 No 7196 p611-613 4 May 2002	This page Reprint Photocopy
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CPD

Reimbursement for workshop is not enough

From Mr R. E. Levy, MRPharmS

I am in receipt of an invitation from the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education to attend a workshop in which I will have the "opportunity to contribute to CPD Pilot Phase II."

My participation, I am told, will help "identify further learning needs and issues that need to be addressed to ensure success in helping colleagues involved in the next phase of this CPD Project".

A useful workshop I thought. My chance to have a say and make a worthwhile contribution. That is until I read the final paragraph which informed me that attendees would be reimbursed with "standard-class travel costs and the normal Department of Health contribution to locum fees". After ringing the CPPE offices I was informed that the normal DoH contribution is £40 per day. "Wow," I said, "that much?"

I am a full-time locum, and to cancel a booking to attend this workshop will cost me approximately £200, only to find myself being reimbursed to the tune of £40.

In the year that our retention fee has risen astronomically, and we are told that most of the extra amount is to cover CPD expenditure, I find this state of affairs insulting to say the least. Why cannot some of this money be released to reimburse fairly those wishing to attend such workshops? After all, this is what the increase was levied for, was it not?

Robert Levy
Manchester

ROBERT DEWDNEY (head of education division, Royal Pharmaceutical Society) replies:

Readers should note that although the CPPE and the Society work closely with each other on a variety of projects they are independent of each other. The CPPE has no access to, or accountability for, the fees levied by the Society.

The CPPE is a Department of Health-funded organisation based within the University of Manchester that provides continuing education workshops and distance learning materials free of charge to pharmacists (and modest reimbursement of some of pharmacists' incidental expenses). Increasingly, CPPE tries more broadly to facilitate pharmacists' continuing professional development.

Readers will be pleased to know that the pilot workshop on CPD, in preparation for the roll-out of a Society-led CPD system for pharmacists, was valued by participants and presenters alike and proved a useful test-bed for more such workshops later in the year.

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