Society will address Which? issues in its work to improve practice
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is to address the issues highlighted by the recent Which? report
on pharmacy services (PJ, 7 February, p143) as part of its continuing work in developing and promoting best pharmacy practice in the interests of patients.
At the February
Council meeting, the President, Dr Gill Hawksworth, said
that the Society has asked Which? for the details of the pharmacies visited
so that further investigations could take place regarding what actually
happened and why. The Society needed to see whether the profession could
learn any general lessons from the Which? research.
David Pruce, Director of Practice and Quality Improvement, told the Council
that the the report was similar to those carried out by Which? in the
past. It had sent in undercover reporters with a variety of scenarios
and had rated every visit good, satisfactory or unsatisfactory when compared
with model responses produced by a panel of three pharmacists — one
from community practice and two academics. All the Society had been told
about the academics were that they were “involved in training pharmacists”.
Mr Pruce said that the Society’s decision to investigate what had
happened and why presupposed that Which? would release the necessary
information, which it had not done on previous occasions. The Society
should try to investigate what had happened not from a punitive point
of view but to ask the pharmacists what had happened and why. The individual
pharmacists could learn from the event and improve their own standard,
but the Society also needed to see whether there were any general lessons
for pharmacists.
The critical factor was whether Which? would co-operate. The Society
should take a robust approach to obtain the information, which it had
already requested. It might need to bring the matter back into the public
arena if the information was not forthcoming.
Mr Pruce added that the Society had formally complained about the Which? article having misquoted the Society, which had never said that there
was a problem with current levels of service in pharmacies. The Society
had also complained about the scaremongering manner in which Which? handled
the story.
But none of this took anything away from the fact that the results were
disappointing, Mr Pruce pointed out. The Society needed to look into
the matter properly and see what could be done.
Some Council members, while acknowledging that there was room for improvement
in community pharmacy, questioned the robustness of the research methods
used by Which?, which were not disclosed in its report.
The report was vulnerable because its sample was tiny and there was nothing
to indicate whether it was a representative sample. However, whether
it was good research or bad, it still clearly indicated that there was
a problem.
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