Grasping the CPD nettle
Self-interest drives most people and, although pharmacists and other
health professionals are able to point to the essential altruism of their
work, they are ultimately no different from the rest of the population.
So on one level it is not surprising that few pharmacists have engaged
in the debate about the modernisation of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
The outcome seems likely to have little impact on most pharmacists in
their day-to-day practice.
Continuing professional development is quite another matter and has implications
for every person currently on the pharmaceutical register. The concern
revolves round the CPD requirements for those people who do not spend
any significant amount of time practising clinical pharmacy or whose work
does not bring them into regular contact with patients. Academics and
industrial pharmacists are one such group. Pharmacist members of the Society’s
staff are another. Pharmacists in Government, including the Medicines
Control Agency, and in quangos like the National Patient Safety Agency
make up a third group. Then there are the superintendent pharmacists of
small multiples, the area and regional managers of large multiples, and
those pharmacists who work in these organisations but may have developed
new skills in, say, information technology who have neither patient contact
nor anything to do with the supply process. And last, but by no means
least, there is the army of locums who work infrequently. What CPD will
all these pharmacists have to participate in to be able to stay on the
register, and how relevant will it be for their professional work?
The suggestion has been put forward that some differentiation should
be made between practising and non-practising registrants. This is a great
idea but merely begs more questions: how will non-practising registrants
be defined, how much CPD will they have to do, how easy will it be to
shift between the two lists? And, of not inconsiderable interest, will
non-practising pharmacists have lower fees to pay?
The Society and its Council are grappling with many difficult issues
at the moment, but now that the profession is becoming more clued up about
CPD (as they receive their individual videotapes about the Society’s
plans) they should turn their attention to these CPD matters as soon as
possible. Few people really enjoy living with uncertainty, and if the
Society and Council let it drift, large sectors of the profession will
feel even more disenfranchised than they do at the moment. The powers
that be need to be seen to be grasping the nettle.
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