The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 272 No 7283 p85
24 January 2004

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Letters to the Editor

Training

Why are pharmacists treated so shabbily?

From Mr D. Thompson, MRPharmS

I was approached recently by a local doctor working with a local drug treatment service and asked if I would be willing to undertake a course in the management of the misuse of drugs. As I already offer supervised methadone consumption and have an interest in this work I agreed.

The course consists of four “masterclasses”, two of which are held in regional centres, in my case London, and requires extensive background reading. On arriving at the first of these days I found that the doctors among us had received locum and travel expenses, the nurses could claim for their travel costs but for the pharmacists reimbursement of neither was possible.

I am pleased to be able to access training in this way but have to ask why pharmacists are being treated so shabbily? We may be entering a new age for pharmacy but it would appear the same old attitudes to pharmacists as glorified shopkeepers still exist in some places. Pharmacists have a vital and central role to play in the development and delivery of health care but unless some of the other players in our team realise we are on the same side nobody is going to win, least of all the patients.

David Thompson
Bournemouth, Dorset

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