PJ Online | PJ Letters: Workforce census

Home > PJ (current issue) > Letters | Search

	The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 269 No 7217 p438-439 28 September 2002	This page Reprint Photocopy
		PDF 50K

Letters

  CPD
  Professionalism
  Smoking cessation
  Health education
  The Society
  Workforce census

Letters to the Editor

* PDF files on PJ Online require Acrobat Reader 4 or later.

Workforce census

Ethnic origin question is "unacceptable"

From Dr A. B. Elliot, FRPharmS

Having received a request to complete the document entitled Pharmacy Workforce Census 2002, I attempted to complete it and found it unacceptable that I should be asked to enter my ethnic origin. I have declined to complete this section and I have stated that "I consider that the collection of such data is racist and undesirable".

I hold this view with regard to all such collection of data on racial origins, but find it particularly objectionable that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society should reveal in its covering letter that the data are to be used "to allow us to monitor our regulatory processes more effectively in the future".

Surely the criteria for membership and fellowship of our Society should be professional ability and integrity — not ethnic origin.

Annie B. Elliot
Sheffield

ZOE WHITTINGTON and Dr SUE AMBLER, pharmacy practice research division, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, reply:

The Society performs an important public function by maintaining the register of Pharmaceutical Chemists and is thus required under race relations legislation to promote race equality. It is, therefore, incumbent upon the Society to collect and analyse data about the ethnic origin of the people on the register. That means that the Society has a duty to ask members about their ethnic origin. If the Society does not comply with the duty placed upon it, it could be challenged by an action for judicial review. In fact, the Society has collected and analysed such data since 1999.

In the most recent national census, the categories used to describe ethnic origin were changed. To ensure that the Society's data can be compared with national statistics, we have taken the opportunity presented by the workforce census to update our ethnic origin data in a cost-effective way.

The ethnic origin data are being collected to update our registration database, not to help plan for the future of the pharmacy profession.

Further information about the collection of ethnic origin data was published recently in The Pharmaceutical Journal (14 September, p378).

Send your letter to The Editor

Previous Topic (The Society)