Supervision
What is left for pharmacists?
From Ms J. R. Skepper, MRPharmS
Community pharmacists are notorious for being cynical luddites but on
the subject of supervision I would ask all hospital pharmacist to consider
joining the cynics.
The use of dispensing technicians to fill the role of junior pharmacists
can only alleviate the shortage of staff in the short term. Who is going
to fill the grade C posts in three to five years time as the vacancies
for grade A/B posts diminish? In The Journal of 5 October there were five
A/B posts advertised compared with 27 C/D posts and 23 technicians posts.
Where are hospitals going to find sufficient numbers of experienced young
pharmacists to fill these grade C/D positions? Perhaps the Government
will solve the problem by promoting technicians further up the hierarchy
and they may well decide that, after all, hospital pharmacists are surplus
to requirements.
In The Journal, technicians are offered a wide variety of roles, including
medicines management, clinical services and support, dispensary manager,
instructors and even prescribing technicians — so what is left for
pharmacists to do?
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has failed miserably to promote the
interests of its members but at least we can draw some satisfaction in
the knowledge that when we are all unemployed, the Council will be too.
J. R. Skepper
Chesham, Buckinghamshire
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