The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 272 No 7294 p445
10 April 2004

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· Prescription fraud
· Care homes
· Methadone services
· Sugar in medicines
· Modernisation

Letters to the Editor

Care homes

Accreditation of care home staff training

From Mr I. G. Simpson, FRPharmS

In your news feature on standards in care homes (PJ, 27 March, p376) there was an erroneous statement that the College of Pharmacy Practice is to launch an accreditation scheme for home staff. What the College is working on is a scheme to accredit training courses for care staff, and we expect that the majority of the training will be delivered by pharmacists.

The National Care Standards Commission minimum standards for the administration of medicines in care homes state that medicines must be administered by appropriately trained staff and that the training must be accredited. However, it is not the responsibility of the commission either to provide the training or to accredit it. We have had discussions with senior staff of the NCSC about this and we will shortly be launching a scheme to accredit courses. There is a great opportunity here for pharmacists to provide training for care home staff and we will be happy to consider accrediting course material for providers operating at both national and local levels. We have built up considerable expertise in the field of accreditation and currently accredit training for medicines counter assistants and representatives in the pharmaceutical industry, as well as a range of courses, events and published material produced by a wide variety of providers.

We will be happy to work with other organisations which provide training for care home staff.

Ian G. Simpson
Chief Executive
College of Pharmacy Practice

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