The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7229 p886
21/28 December 2002

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  Period-of-treatment fee
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Letters to the Editor

Community pharmacy

Wake up!

From Mr O. Carter

Malcolm Stein's letter, "The death of community pharmacy as we know it?" (PJ, 7 December, p813), sums up the current attitude of a lot of members who feel threatened by developments in our profession.

He talks of checking technicians muscling in on the pharmacist's traditional role. Instead, perhaps, it is time that pharmacists stopped being checking technicians and started being the modern professional pharmacists that the profession so greatly needs to carry it through the challenges ahead.

In order to meet pharmacy's changing role it is necessary to change how our profession works and the skill mix of the people involved in it. Other skilled staff, such as checking technicians, are an asset to the profession. They will help enable us to extend our role to areas where our expertise can be used to its full effect, such as medicines management.

It is exactly this "can't do" attitude to change that is holding the profession back. Community pharmacists need to wake up to the fact that if they do not change their working practices then the Government will probably get someone else to do the job cheaper, better and without so much resistance.

Oliver Carter
Fourth Year Pharmacy Student
University of Portsmouth

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