| · Pharmacy education
· Prostate problems
· Indemnity insurance
· The register
· The Journal
· The profession
· Energy expenditure
Letters to the Editor
|
Pharmacy education
Pharmacy degree is not a passport to nowhere
From Mr C. P. Butler, FRPharmS
I was interested to read your analysis (PJ, 1 May, p530) of the reported
interview with
Robert Dewdney, head of education, Royal Pharmaceutical
Society (PJ, 1 May, p531). You correctly highlight the need for an increase
in the number of pharmacy graduates leaving university who are intent
on developing careers within the UK.
For more than 10 years there has been a shortage of pharmacists with
the appropriate qualities to develop into quality practitioners with
up-to-date skills. Sadly it was only some five years or so ago that the
Society reluctantly agreed with members that this was the case. The situation
was made considerably worse as a result of the so-called “fallow
year” and at that time a large number of preregistration places
went unfilled, in many cases to be replaced by the recruitment of additional
(non-graduate) support staff. That position can be reversed and I know
a number of employers in community practice who are now planning to make
preregistration places available again, as soon as an opportunity arises
to rearrange staffing and skill mix.
Dr Dewdney is reported as suggesting that a national plan for pharmacy
education is required but he claims the Society, as regulator, is not
in a position to do this on its own. This may of course be true, but
I find it astonishing that Dr Dewdney appears to support a “do
nothing” policy. I would have expected the Society’s head
of education to have been proactive in formulating such a plan in consultation
with all major stakeholders. I believe members deserve to be told what
Dr Dewdney has achieved in this direction during his tenure because I
am shocked at the admission that such an important plan does not exist.
Recently, I attended an interesting meeting at the University of Reading,
one of a series being held with employers and other members of the profession,
during which the planned programme for launching a new school of pharmacy
at Reading was spelt out. An important part of the approach at Reading
is to ensure that employers, including the NHS, are supportive of the
establishment of the school and that undergraduates are introduced at
an early stage to the “pharmacy family” locally. There appeared
to be unanimous enthusiasm around the table for the new school and I
heard no mention of a potential problem for preregistration placements.
I was puzzled that Dr Dewdney raised a question about the existence of
a limited pool of pharmacy academics to teach in the new schools of pharmacy.
Since employment is largely a matter of supply and demand, I would have
found it strange if an excess of pharmacy academics had in fact currently
existed. The new schools of pharmacy may have to sell themselves hard
to attract high-calibre academics to teach pharmaceutics and practice,
but similar problems may not necessarily exist with other subjects such
as chemistry, biosciences, genomics or law. Certainly, at Reading, it
appears that a huge pool of scientific and other talent already exists
around the campus which can be relied upon to assist in the development
of its school of pharmacy. If the Society’s education division
had in the past been sufficiently proactive in bringing together a national
plan for pharmacy education, then there may already have been some nascent
academics honing their pharmacy-specific skills in preparation for a
career spent educating and influencing the development of future practitioners.
I welcome the trend to educate and produce more pharmacy graduates but,
while you are right to raise the question, I do not consider the pharmacy
degree will become a passport to nowhere. On the contrary, against a
background of portfolio careers and an increasing awareness of what pharmacists
have to offer the nation, I believe that a bright future is ahead for
the profession. I hope the Society does not let us down.
Charles Butler
Chairman, Chiltern Region,
Royal Pharmaceutical Society
| |
ROBERT DEWDNEY, head of education, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, replies:
The primary responsibility of the regulator in this arena is to quality
assure education and training, prequalification and, increasingly,
postqualification as well. This is particularly important in the case
of the Society, because
it is more open than any other regulator to charges of self-interest
in restricting entry to the profession (it also being a membership body).
Government policy in health and education has, for as long as I
have been
at the Society, been for a free market in the supply of pharmacists.
The Society has lobbied at various times over those years, particularly
over
the past two years, for a different arrangement, up to now without
success.
I stand by my comments, with only a slight modification: the present
pace of unplanned expansion is potentially detrimental to the quality
of pharmacy education
in this country. My slight modification is in the qualifier, the present
pace. Clearly, the labour market in and for pharmacy academics (particularly
those
who are pharmacists themselves) could improve over a period of several
years, although there we run into another problem which the Society
has sought to address
several times: uncompetitive pay rates, particularly for junior staff,
in higher education.
With respect to plans for pharmacy education, on “my watch” we have
reformed pharmacy education from top to bottom, side by side with considerable
market-led expansion of numbers over the whole of that period (numbers of students
entering schools of pharmacy during my time at the Society). The success of that
venture has contributed to the wider success of the profession and to its practitioners
being so sought after. The debate that needs to be opened is “if, how and
where?”. Greatly accelerated expansion at undergraduate level should take
place. What has been achieved will be at risk if that debate is not joined and
its conclusions taken seriously by national politicians. I certainly do not advocate
a “do nothing” policy — quite the opposite. |
|
The
Pharmaceutical Journal