PJ Online | PJ Letters: The Society

Home > PJ (current issue) > Letters | Search

	The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 270 No 7247 p616-618 3 May 2003	This page Reprint Photocopy
		PDF* 75K

Letters

  The Charter
  Period-of-treatment fee
  Homoeopathy
  The Society

Letters to the Editor

* PDF files on PJ Online require Acrobat Reader 4 or later.

The Society

Decimation, not modernisation

Checking employee pharmacists' credentials

Decimation, not modernisation

From Mr P. Walton, MRPharmS

I resent the term "modernisation" to describe the process of reform that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society is currently undertaking. I would like to suggest "decimation" as being a more appropriate term for this process.

Philip Walton
Manchester

Checking employee pharmacists' credentials

From Mr L. S. R. Baker, MRPharmS

I note that pharmacists employing other pharmacists are reminded that "it is essential that they make suitable checks to confirm [employee pharmacists'] registration status" (PJ, 19 April, p559).

It seems to take at least four weeks for retention fee receipts to be sent out, and as a result I am in breach of my employer's requirement that I employ registered pharmacists, and my qualified staff are in breach of their contracts of employment by practising while not providing proof of registration.

I am aware that I can write to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's registration department for confirmation of registration, but with at least 30 pharmacists, all of whom pay their retention fees on different days, this is clearly impractical.

Llew Baker
Head of Pharmacy,
Hull and East Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust

STEPHEN LUTENER, head of professional conduct, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, replies:

The Society provides online checking of pharmacists' registration at its website (www.rpsgb.org.uk). This, coupled with a check that people are who they say they are, will help identify registered pharmacists. The online check should be carried out before employing or engaging a pharmacist, then at least every year, at the time that those who have not paid their retention fees are removed from the register. An online check is not needed at that time if, during the earlier part of the year, the pharmacist has produced a receipt for the current year's fees.

Each month, after the Statutory Committee meetings, directions given are published in The Pharmaceutical Journal, and these ought also to be checked to ensure that a pharmacist has not been ordered to be removed from the register by the Statutory Committee.

Send your letter to The Editor

Previous Topic (Homoeopathy)