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Letters to the Editor
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CPD
Funding for the future?
From Mrs A. Morant, MRPharmS
Yet again pharmacy has drawn the short straw with respect to funding.
At the same time as the Government wishes to increase the role of pharmacists,
it is not providing adequate funding. This is exacerbated by the Royal
Pharmaceutical Society insisting on mandatory continuing professional
development.
Wishing to keep up to date, I have been attending Centre for Pharmacy
Postgraduate Education courses almost since their inception. I have found
these courses of great value, since apart from just accruing hours of
attendance credits, I almost invariably have had to call upon the knowledge
gained. Unfortunately, the CPPE has now informed me that owing to lack
of funds the number of permitted courses has been reduced from 12 to
eight, even though “web-based learning events will be excluded
from this count”.
This small olive branch is, in fact, worthless. After all, unless a pharmacy
has either a spare telephone line or broadband, one would be tying up
the telephone for an unacceptably long period. It would be reprehensible
for an individual pharmacist to monopolise a resource provided for the
benefit of the business as a whole, particularly so in my case because
I am a locum pharmacist. A similar issue applies to home use with the
additional caveat that one would like to be free to enjoy a home life
away from pharmacy, even though our “masters” do not appear
to think so. Furthermore, how can one give due care to either dispensing
or learning if one is constantly having to switch between them? Can you
think of anything more likely to result in dispensing errors?
Many pharmacists attend CPPE courses, but there is a larger number who
do not. If the CPPE is already having difficulties meeting existing demands,
what will occur when CPD becomes mandatory, unless there is a massive
injection of funds and, possibly, a total restructure?
Annette Morant
Edgware, Middlesex
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal