The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 273 No 7318 p407
25 September 2004

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Strategy needed for clinical areas in prescribing

MPs are concerned that there is no national strategy for the clinical areas in which pharmacists choose to specialise when they become supplementary prescribers. The issue was highlighted by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Skin when it was looking at dermatological training for health professionals.

Its report published last month criticised the didactic elements of the training courses for pharmacists who want to be supplementary prescribers which, it said, focus mainly on organisation and patient consultation.

It said: “Specific aspects of therapeutics are addressed largely during the supervised hands-on training and therefore tend to reflect the interests of the supervisor. The APPGS is concerned that there is no national strategy to train a body of pharmacist supplementary prescribers with expertise in dermatology (or any other therapeutic specialty, for that matter).”

Consultant pharmacist Christine Clark, a specialist adviser to the committee, said: “Hypothetically you could end up with lots of supplementary prescribers in diabetes, for example, but none in other areas such as dermatology. I am concerned about this because dermatology problems are common, although they are classified by the Department of Health as minor ailments.

“ My other concern is that because we don’t have any national strategy on which clinical areas we would like supplementary prescribers to practise in, or where we would like them to develop areas of expertise, it will happen in an ad hoc way.”

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society asks pharmacists which clinical area they plan to prescribe in when they register as supplementary prescribers. However, since the ability to prescribe is a general qualification, areas of specialism are not recorded on the register.

A spokeswoman for the Society explained that specialist knowledge should be maintained through continuing professional development. The Society would expect pharmacists only to prescribe within their competence.