The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7236 p249
15 February 2003

Society summary

Your views wanted on mandatory CPD

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is seeking views on mandatory continuing professional development for pharmacists through a survey form distributed with this week's Pharmaceutical Journal.

The survey is a follow-up to the consultation document produced by the Society's CPD implementation committee, which was published as a centre pull-out in last week's Journal (and also summarised on p205).

The survey form is being distributed with all copies of The Pharmaceutical Journal sent to members with registered addresses in Britain. Further copies of the form can be downloaded from the CPD page within the education section of the Society's website. The form bears a Freepost address and is designed for posting without the need for an envelope.

For members resident overseas, who are also affected by the proposals, PJ Online is offering a version of the form that can be completed online. Others are welcome to respond by this means should they so wish.

The closing date for responses is 17 March. The responses will be summarised in an article in The Journal on 29 March and will be considered by the Council at its meeting in April.

The survey form need not take long to complete. It asks for views on six specific matters and gives respondents the opportunity to add additional comments on these or related matters.

The questions on which it seeks specific views are:

• Which pharmacists should mandatory CPD should apply to?

• What should be in a pharmacist's CPD record as a minimum requirement?

• Should the Society restructure its register to have "active" and "inactive" categories?

• If so, should pharmacists in the "inactive" category be required regularly to sign an undertaking not to engage in any form of pharmacy practice?

• What title might be appropriate for those in the "inactive" category?

• Should CPD records for those who acquire prescribing rights (or some other clinical responsibility in the future) include CPD specifically related to that responsibility?

Before completing the survey form, members may wish to read the answers, set out here, to a number of questions that have been addressed to the CPD implementation group since publication of the consultation document.