The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7237 p265-266
22 February 2003

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  OFT report
  Supermarket pharmacy
  CPD
  Repeat prescribing
  Community pharmacy
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  Dispensing
  YPG project
  The Profession
  Diabetes
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Letters to the Editor

CPD

What to call retired pharmacists

From Mr K. J. Jarrett, MRPharmS

With regard to mandatory continuing professional development, I cannot see any problem with the position of retired pharmacists like myself. Ex-servicemen can use their service rank followed by "(Ret.)", so why not retired pharmacists who choose not to take part in CPD? The use of the suffix would of course be mandatory.

K. Jarrett
Largs, Ayrshire

Certificate to practise would solve problems

From Mr N. R. Newberry, MRPharmS

Surely, the continuing professional development issues could be resolved quite simply if community, hospital and primary care pharmacists needed a certificate to practise. To obtain or retain the certificate they would have to undertake CPD. Membership of the Society would then be separated from CPD, so academics and retired pharmacists could remain on the register. Everyone on the register remains a pharmacist. The Society might use a term like "practising pharmacist" but the public would not need to know about it — the working pharmacist they spoke to would be suitably qualified. If asked, other pharmacists would say that they are not authorised to practise and the inquirer directed to an appropriate institution. Actually, the other pharmacists would be unlikely to get asked by the general public as they would not be perceived as being "chemists".

The practising certificate should be paid for by the relevant pharmacist or their employer.

Nigel Newberry
Bicester, Oxfordshire

Will Council members be "pretty inactive pharmacists"?

From Mr K. M. Youings, MRPharmS

As I await being reclassified as "inactive", I cannot help but muse that the chief pharmacists for England, Scotland and Wales will be the "chief inactive pharmacists", and that the earlier controversy over the possible appointment of a non-pharmacist Secretary and Registrar has been resolved — on appointment even if they were pharmacists they become inactive.

Ought there to be a new category for members of Council? Since they spend say six weeks on holiday, four weeks on Council work, presumably a couple of weeks a year visiting branches and another couple of weeks on the numerous other committees on which many sit, "pretty inactive pharmacist" seems appropriate.

It is a pity Gilbert and Sullivan are no longer with us!

K. M. Youings
Romford, Essex

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