The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 272 No 7301 p685
29 May 2004

Society summary

BRM seeks language test for European pharmacists

The Society should be allowed, in the interest of patient safety, to include an assessment of competency in English and in law and ethics in the registration requirements for pharmacists from the European Economic Area who wish to work in Britain. This would entail a change in European legislation and the branch representatives’ meeting on 13 May called on the Society to lobby for such a change.

After the motion had been carried, the Secretary and Registrar, Ann Lewis, said that the Society welcomed it. Through its lobbying, as part of the Alliance of Health Regulators in Europe, it was pressing hard for an amendment to the proposed EU Directive.

Proposing the motion, Zafar Khan (West Metropolitan) said that non-European overseas pharmacists had to score at least seven out of 10 in the international English language testing system for each parameter of listening, reading, writing and speaking. Pharmacists from member states of the EEA did not have to pass this test. They could register with the Society as long as they had a relevant degree in pharmacy and were in good standing with their national professional body. Patients’ safety would be compromised unless they had a comprehensive grasp of the English language, as well as British pharmacy law and ethics.

Jeff Harris (Oxfordshire), seconding the motion, said that he supported the motion on the basis of local problems brought to him as branch chairman. When doctors’ surgeries telephoned local pharmacists in which foreign pharmacists were working, they found a complete lack of verbal communication. He had spoken with an area manager of a large national company that had found similar problems and now ensured that pharmacists from abroad were employed only as second pharmacists and never left in sole command. Pharmacists from abroad found it difficult to take case histories — two Spanish pharmacists had recently told him that they were scared to take a history.

David Thomas (Thames Valley) thought this one of the most important motions for a decade. He was astonished that no directive required a European pharmacist to be able to speak English to practise pharmacy in Britain. The fact you could speak and write English did not mean you could communicate. The wording must include communication.

Maurice Hickey (Moray and Banff) said that the Code of Ethics required pharmacist proprietors, superintendent pharmacists and pharmacist managers in hospitals to ensure pharmacists employed by them were sufficiently competent in English. But it should be written into the Code that the pharmacist has an ethical duty to be able to communicate in the language of the patient. The motion was just the start. The change should be in the Code of Ethics.

Mike Burden (Leicestershire and Rutland) said that a pharmacist who had passed a test of competency in English might still not be able to understand patients in Scotland or Wales. It was entirely right that responsibility for assessing competence was at a local and immediate level. And if members thought they were going to change the European directives, they would have a long wait.

David Pruce (the Society’s Director of Practice and Quality Improvement) said the Society had looked at whether the Code of Ethics covered this particular instance. As Mr Hickey pointed out, it was explicitly covered for superintendents and owners. But the Code also said that pharmacists should be able to be competent for the job they were doing, which implicitly included being able to communicate in English.