The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7233 p116
25 January 2003

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  Period-of-treatment fee
  Registration exam
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Letters to the Editor

CPD

When will consultation on CPD take place?

From D. C. Shenton, MRPharmS

I would like to pursue my unhappiness, previously expressed in your columns (PJ, 29 June 2002, p905), at the apparent lack of clear policies concerning revalidation of registration via mandatory continuing professional development. There have been straws in the wind in recent months showing that concern about the status of retired, non-practising members who decline to take part in formal and recorded CPD may well find the simple, sensible solution — a dual-level register. But there are also other questions to be settled (PJ, 15 June 2002, pp844–846), and we await enlightenment on those.

The profession's governors must be expecting a busy year, particularly if the view of past president Nicholas Wood (PJ, 11 January, p51) that the Society "... will soon cease to exist in any aspect previously recognisable" is well founded. Nonetheless, may I ask whoever is the prime mover in the matter, just when he or she foresees consultations and discussions taking place, and policy being promulgated, on the straightforward question just mentioned and on the other more awkward questions?

In a response to a published letter, Dr Dewdney recently stated (PJ, 14 December 2002, p846) that mandatory CPD must arrive soon, and that the question about what happens to the non-practising retired will of course have to be addressed, as, by implication, will the others. Yes, but when? The policies that underlie mandatory CPD have to come before the actual introduction of the thing itself. And if what I have called the straightforward question is not in fact to receive the simple answer, some of us would very much like to know by how many days our membership is numbered.

 David Shenton
Staines, Middlesex

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