| · Emergency supplies
· Education
· New contract
· Agenda for change
· CPD
· Retention fees
· Boots the Chemists
· The industry
· Aqueous cream
· Overseas members
Letters to the Editor
|
CPD
Inexcusable that the members should foot the bill
From Mr S. I. Dajani, MRPharmS
So Peter Curphey supports the notion that all continuing professional
development monitoring costs need to be the same. Is he suggesting we monitor
those in Timbuctoo as well, just to justify the full-time retention fee?
He must be because he expects overseas pharmacists to pay the same as those
in full-time work in Britain. Surely the Royal Pharmaceutical Society cannot
invoke UK governance where international laws, local governance, rules
and regulations vary. This cannot be practical or safe and so his argument
about comparative regulatory costs is absurd.
Mr Curphey also believes part-time fees will lead to part-time competencies.
But a lower payment tier for part-timers or those semi-retired should not,
and will not, detract from the importance of their competency. Surely regulating
technicians at barely a third of the cost of a full year fee will not mean
they will only be regulated for four months a year, or be a third as competent?
How insulting to the technicians! Part-timers covering for pharmacists
with special skills are not expected to have the same skills. However,
they do require requisite competencies to fulfil fundamental roles in minor
ailments, professional environment processes (standard operating procedures)
and be able to satisfy clinical governance arrangements. The amount they
work should also ensure their CPD policing and monitoring reflect lower
monitoring costs.
We cannot justify any of this new fee structure or even substantiate the
fee increases all-round, especially as the Society has failed to negotiate
protected learning time — as with GPs and dentists — and get
CPD funded. Furthermore it has failed to get an equal footing with other
health care professions and make Workforce Development Confederation funds
more easily available to those who do not access its resources. And in
the absence of a review of the Society’s costs or negotiation, it
is inexcusable that the membership is asked yet again to foot the bill
without some value for money in recompense. If our businesses need more
money we review, budget and only charge our customers more as the last
resort, not the first.
In my view, if the Society were to have voluntary membership, it would
be redundant.
In my part of the world locums need to be warm and breathing, as Mr Curphey
puts it; any other way and they would not be able to do anything at all — let
alone CPD.
Sultan I. Dajani
Member of Council
Royal Pharmaceutical Society |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal