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Dr PETER WILSON, consultant on continuing professional development, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, replies:

A number of correspondents who have expressed concerns about participation in continuing professional development have made the assumption that CPD must focus on practice in community or hospital pharmacy. This is not the case. For any pharmacist participating in CPD, the focus should be on the work that they do. For community pharmacists, the majority of their CPD would relate to community pharmacy practice. For industrial pharmacists, CPD would focus on their work in industry, eg, production, formulation, quality assurance, etc. We know from the CPD pilots that for most pharmacist, CPD will bring little change in the nature and extent of their learning activities. The major change is keeping records of CPD. In the pilots, most pharmacists spent about 30 minutes each month on record keeping.

The detailed requirements for pharmacists’ participation in CPD are not yet defined. Assuredly though, it is not the intention of the Society that introduction of CPD will lead to committed pharmacists relinquishing their membership.