The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7198 p683-685
18 May 2002

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  Education
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Letters to the Editor

Supervision

Has anyone asked the public?

From Mr A. C. Gush, MRPharmS

In reply to Helen Remington (PJ, 20 April, p532) may I commend to her an article by Darrin Baines in Chemist & Druggist of 16 March. Dr Baines suggests that the profession's leaders have failed us because they have devalued the achievements of the past (rather than building upon them) en route to the future. Mrs Remington, while admitting only a limited understanding of community pharmacy, still feels qualified to lecture her community colleagues upon pharmacy mergers, service reconfiguration and skill mixing — while apparently recognising no value in community pharmacy as it is currently practised — in short, she has fallen into precisely the trap that Dr Baines describes.

What is notable throughout is that she talks of professional aspirations not patients. Has anyone bothered to enquire whether pharmacies without pharmacists is what the public wants? Whither then community pharmacists' public health role? Is the true agenda one of patient focus or has this become obscured by professional arrogance and personal ambition?

I am aware that the chief pharmaceutical officer for England is soon to publish a paper on the skill mix and supervision issue. For the sake of community pharmacists and the public, let us hope that he is talking to the people who actually provide the service in developing his ideas.

Andrew Gush
Porthcawl, Wales

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