The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7203 p884-885
22 June 2002

June Council meeting

Society joins lobby against draft new EU directive on professional qualifications

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is collaborating with other health regulatory bodies on a project to lobby in Europe over a number of common concerns about a proposed new European Union directive on the recognition of professional qualifications.

The action was approved by the Society's Council at its meeting in London on 11 and 12 June.

A particular concern of the collaborating bodies is the standard of education and training in countries that are seeking admission to the EU. The United Kingdom health regulatory bodies believe that the European Commission is ignoring its responsibility as a matter of public safety to ensure that citizens received good standards of health care treatment.

The SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR (Ann Lewis) said that as well as collaborating with other UK regulatory bodies, the Society would act in liaison with other bodies, such as the Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union. The Society's deputy secretary, Philip Green, was leading on the topic. The important thing with the lobbying process was that the health regulatory bodies could achieve far more together than they could individually.

Dr Gordon APPELBE said that the changes woudl affect the recognition of professional qualifications and the free movement of pharmacists throughout Europe. The EU membership of 15 nations was likely to grow to something like 25 within the next couple of years. The matter was of fundamental importance, and should have been before Council at an earlier stage.

There were two major difficulties. The proposals by the Commission would produce a single directive to control all the professions. That was an interesting concept. In the past, since 1985, pharmacy had been subject to its own sectoral directive.

The SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR said that documents had been circulated to the Council about a year ago when the proposal was first raised. The draft directorate was hundreds of pages. The issue was a complex one. The Council had been kept informed, and some guidance and comments from the Department of Health had been circulated to Council members.

Infringements Committee

The Council approved four further changes to the composition and workings of the Infringements Committee pending the completion of a review under the Society's modernisation programme. It was agreed that the committee would comprise all three Privy Council nominee members of Council plus five professional members of Council, the quorum for meetings would be four, including one Privy Council nominee, the chairman would have a substantive vote and a casting vote, and Council members not serving on the committee would receive its minutes but not its agenda and papers except on request.

The Council was reminded that the role of the Infringements Committee is to act as the final screener of alleged infringements that are within the Society's enforcement responsibility and decides whether prosecution and/or a referral to the Statutory Committee is appropriate. It also screens those cases that the Professional Standards Directorate believes may be satisfactorily be disposed of by means of a written warning.

In December 2001, the Council delegated authority to the committee to take such action without ratification. At its April meeting the Council agreed that the committee's chairman and deputy chairman should be Privy Council nominee members of Council, that appropriate training should be given before members sit on the committee, that only those who have signed the code of conduct for Council members should be eligible to serve on the committee, and that the committee should call upon expert witnesses from specialist areas of practice when required.

Answering a question, the PRESIDENT (Marshall Davies) said that the proposal was that only the eight full members of the committee would have voting rights. Typically, the President and the Vice-President were ex-officio at all meetings, but if they were present they would not have voting rights.

LINDA STONE said that the corporate governance group needed to consider the right of the Officers to attend committees in an ex-officio capacity. It might no longer be appropriate in the case of the Infringement Committee. Other bodies with screening committees did not allow observers.

The SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR asked that the group should also consider matters from a training and development point of view. It was normal for new Council members to attend committees for the purpose of knowing what was going on.

SULTAN DAJANI said that he wanted it minuted that when somebody went for a position it was based on merit, on how hard they worked, on their experience and what they could contribute. One of the April decisions had been that members of Council who had not signed the code of conduct should be ineligible to serve on the Infringements Committee. However, members did not have to sign the code to fulfil all the roles of Council as outlined in the corporate governance handbook. Mr Dajani said he had signed the declaration of interest and gifts. Although the matter had been adopted, he still disagreed with it.

The PRESIDENT said that it was policy that had been agreed by Council.

Mr DAJANI asked whether it was possible to increase the number of committee members who were not pharmacists.

Mrs STONE said that such matters had been discussed before the first set of recommendations was brought to Council. Advice had been given that existing legislation did not allow the appointment of anybody who was not a member of Council to be a member of the Infringements Committee. Therefore the approach reached was a pragmatic one, recognising that there were concerns about the proportion of professional members. Other similar bodies typically had a membership of five to seven, with anything from two to four lay members.

The four recommendations were then put to the vote and were agreed.

On the motion of the PRESIDENT, the Council agreed that the matter of the attendance of the President and the Vice-President at Infringements Committee meetings should be taken back for further consideration by the corporate governance group, together with the issue of the training of Council members.

(Under a separate agenda item, the Council agreed that its April decision to bar those who have not signed the Council code of conduct from serving on the Infringements Committee (mentioned in the debate above) should be extended. Those who do not sign would also be ineligible to chair any Society committee or to serve on the Adjudicating Committee, the Audit Committee or the Remuneration Committee. The decision also has the effect of barring them from the Resource Management Committee, on which Council members sit only in their capacity as chairmen of other committees. A report of the debate on this issue will appear in next week's Journal.)

Support staff training

The Council approved an interim position statement on the training of pharmacy support staff which makes it clear that the Society cannot accept dispensing technician training that is college-based only and has no relevant work-based experience.

The statement reads: "It has been drawn to the Council's attention that there are some support staff training programmes that are being offered on a full-time basis without any requirement for relevant work-based experience in a pharmacy.

"It is the Council's view that all training programmes for pharmacy support staff should combine an underpinning knowledge component with sufficient relevant practical work-based experience. The Council believes that it is in the profession's best interests for support staff to be undertaking relevant work-based experience during their training. Full-time academic qualifications without concomitant work experience that is relevant to the qualification would not be considered to be acceptable."

Support staff consultation

The Council approved, subject to slight amendment, a first consultation paper (PDF*, 60K) on the Society's role in the regulation of support staff. The aim of the paper (see pp888–890) is to outline some of the implications of the Council's recent policy decision to move towards the mandatory regulation of pharmacy support staff, to stimulate debate within the profession and to prompt feedback.

Preregistration training

Seventy per cent of preregistration trainees last year had had experience of both major sectors of pharmacy practice, the Council was told.

Reporting on a meeting of the Employer Senior Executive Group on 28 May, CHRISTINE GLOVER said that the group was made up of decision-makers who had come together with a view to progressing preregistration training. They had made tremendous strides. To have gone from almost nothing to 70 per cent in such a short time was terrific. The group felt strongly that they needed to evaluate the work so far. They needed evidence that it was worth spending more time and effort on getting the last 30 per cent.

DIGBY EMSON, supporting Mrs Glover's comments, said that getting to 70 per cent had been good progress, but there was a view that an exponential amount of effort would be required to get to 100 per cent. Many major employers had to make recruiting decisions in August or September and those decisions would inevitably be influenced by whether it was possible to achieve more placements. He therefore urged the Society to support the appointment and resourcing of the persons who would evaluate what had been achieved so far.

The SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR said that the matter would be looked at urgently.

Pharmacy staff training

The Council was advised that pharmacy staff training was in future to be covered by a Department for Education skills council for health rather than one for science and technology.

PETER CURPHEY said that he represented the Council on the pharmacy sector committee of the Science, Mathematics and Technology National Training Organisation. The pharmacy committee had been a useful one. It had developed the original Scottish/National Vocational Qualification level three standard for pharmacy technicians, which had now been updated, and it had just agreed a level two standard, which the Council wanted for support staff who were not technicians. However, the Department for Education was now pooling the NTOs under what it called sector skills councils, and the science, mathematics and technology NTO had decided to link with the marine engineers, and Mr Curphey had a feeling that pharmacy was becoming detached from the realities of what it was concerned with.

Mr Curphey said that for the three years that he had chaired the group he had been trying to ease it into a more health-related sector. Following the scrapping of the NTOs — including Healthworks, the health NTO — a new group called Skills for Health had been formed in which anyone employed in the health sector was represented. With Janet Flint, the Society's practice pharmacist, he had lobbied hard to get pharmacy linked with Skills for Health and they had now had a letter stating that there was complete support for pharmacy to move under the Skills for Health umbrella as a planned sector skills council for health.

The significance was that pharmacy might be regarded in the future as part of the health family and not as some weird science profession that worked in laboratories. This would facilitate the training of technicians and the possibility of them becoming pharmacists.