The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 271 No 7272 p580
25 October 2003

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Letters to the Editor

The Profession

We must protect our interests

From Miss T. O. O. Banjo, MRPharmS

We must all try to embrace the new changes outlined in the Department of Health document “A vision for pharmacy in the new NHS” published in July 2003, however we must also safeguard our profession.

The Government has many plans for pharmacy, some of which could be detrimental. If supermarkets and multiples were to have their way, technicians would run the dispensary and pharmacists could be out of a job. Already technicians are looking forward to a pharmacist-free dispensary; multiples would be able to make do with pharmacist area managers.

We need to tread carefully if we do not want pharmacists to be obsolete in years to come.

I am all for skill mix and technician registration, but I would not like to see technicians having sole control of any pharmacy, let alone a community pharmacy. It is time for pharmacists, and the organisations that protect our interests, to rise and unite as one, and move forward lest we are left to fester.

I would like to applaud the National Pharmaceutical Association for their recent response to the DoH document (see p569).

Taiwo Banjo
Enfield, Middlesex

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