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The Society
How justified is the workforce census?
From Mr P. Jenkins, FRPharmS
There is to be another pharmacy workforce census in 2003 but how justified
is this exercise? Against the arguments that all knowledge is useful
and baselines are needed to detect trends there can be no disagreement,
but having gathered all the facts what will the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society do with them to justify the cost? As for workforce planning,
apart from the small number of pharmacists the Society directly employs
it has no power to direct labour either across the country or from one
type of work to another. It will be the schools of pharmacy together
with the new primary care authorities in the various countries that will,
in time, solve the manpower shortage.
For the Society it may seem an impressive exercise to do a major trawl
for information but apart from neatness and the appearance of action
there are other, less dramatic, ways of getting useful facts more conveniently,
and at less cost.
When the information is collated it has to be sent to the departments
that can use it — but why that way round?
For example, the education division needs certain facts to ensure the
continuing professional development portfolios being returned are relevant
to practitioners’ work, so it requests personal details when people
register and can ask for more when the returns are submitted. The same
applies with all membership groups and wherever the Society contacts
the membership in mass. There is also the request for information on
our age, sex, address and field of practice when we make our yearly registration
returns, and these are analysed.
So before deciding to have a census as such, why not decide what facts
can be useful, given the Society’s limited powers, and ask relevant
questions each year within established necessary mailings so that the
information will go straight to the department that will use it.
To avoid duplication of effort and for the sake of economy, realism and
continuity these processes are worth considering and putting in place
for the future.
Peter Jenkins
Cardiff
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ZOE WHITTINGTON, practice research manager, Royal Pharmaceutical
Society, replies:
Influencing national education and health policy
forms a central part of the Society’s professional leadership
function. As workforce planning is a key theme in both policy areas
the collection and careful analysis of workforce data for pharmacy
is a core activity for the Society. The data from the 2002 Pharmacy
Workforce Census has already been used in responding to the recent
debate about the Office of Fair Trading proposals on control of
entry.
Information generated from the 2002 Pharmacy Workforce Census has
been made publicly available through the Society’s website and a series of articles has been
published in The Pharmaceutical Journal. Relevant stakeholders, both internally
and externally, have been fully briefed about the findings. Specifically, the
information from the census and other follow-up research is being used to inform
the roll-out of continuing professional development and specific analyses have
been undertaken and presented to the Society’s Scottish and Welsh Executives.
Before the decision to undertake a workforce census in 2002, extensive consultation
with relevant stakeholders identified the key data that needed to be collected.
The 2003 data will be compared with the 2002 data and the extent of in-year
changes quantified. In the light of this the frequency of future census exercises
will
be agreed as will the method of data collection.
We have received over 14,500 responses to date (38 per cent) and would like
to thank those pharmacists who have returned their census forms. Clearly the
higher
the response rate the higher the quality and usefulness of the data. If we
are to inform policy effectively it is important that our data are as comprehensive
as possible. |
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