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Letters to the Editor
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Registration exam
More vocational training during the degree
From Miss D. L. Hedley, MRPharmS
With reference to the article by Sultan Dajani (PJ, 13 November, p712),
I am writing to say that I agree with this position.
An honours degree in pharmacy takes four years to complete. After one
year of vocational training the student is forced to undertake a registration
examination in order to practise. This somewhat devalues the degree as
the necessary qualification to practise, as failure to pass the examination
within the prescribed number of attempts bars the individual from registering.
Why is pharmacy the only health care profession to set a limit on the
number of times that the qualifying examination may be attempted? Are
we any different from any of the other health care professionals?
I note also that a person who holds an honours degree in pharmacy but
has failed the registration examination is barred from registering as
a pharmacy technician. The qualification undertaken by technicians has
changed from a BTEC, an educational-based qualification, to a National
Vocational Qualification. Might I suggest that the registration examination
be abolished and more vocational training introduced into the honours
degree as in keeping with, for example, a degree in medicine.
Deborah Hedley
Rotherham, South Yorkshire
Is it assessing the assessors?
From Mr A. T. Evans, MRPharmS
At last a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council
has taken note of what the Society’s members have been saying for
the past 12 years (PJ, 13 November, p712).
Maybe now the Society will take stock and review the status of the registration
examination. As a preregistration tutor I find it difficult to convince
my preregistration trainees of the merits of the examination when the
Society can provide no evidence of its success apart from the pass rate.
Does this examination prove competence? Does it even assess competence
or was it just a knee jerk reaction to the Nuffield report? I agree we
need to assess competence, but is not this the role of the preregistration
tutor. Perhaps Objective Structured Clinical Examinations would aid this
assessment.
Or are we just trying to assess the quality of the training and to judge
the assessors of the trainees? I was surprised to find how little we,
as a hospital department, had to do to be deemed competent to train trainees.
No inspections, just say “yes”. University degrees are regularly
assessed for appropriateness, hospital preregistration training sites
are never assessed for their training capabilities. Therefore, if a trainee
fails the examination, is he or she incompetent or is it the training
that is failing? With the current three-strikes-and-you-are-out system
the career of the trainee lies in the hands of the training unit, which
has never been assessed. I hope that Sultan Dajani, as a member of the
Council, is able to take this forward, with the support of the members,
to get a review of this system or that the Society will provide evidence
that the examination has improved the competence of registered pharmacists.
Anthony Evans
Margate,
Kent
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PETER BURLEY, head of preregistration, Royal Pharmaceutical
Society, replies:
The Society will be conducting a major review
of all these
types of activity — and consulting members on them — in
the context of implementing the Section 60 Order over the next
few years.
More immediately, the Society through its board of examiners and
through regular liaison with pharmacy employers does keep the appropriateness
of the preregistration
year standards, assessments and the registration examination and its syllabus
under review. This continuous review is always mindful of the competence of
newly qualified pharmacists to practise.
Whether to rebase assessments away from a written tests towards universal Objective
Structured Clinical Examinations is a question the Society always needs to
bear in mind. During 2005 the examiners will be looking hard at the registration
examination
in the context of disability discrimination legislation, and this is something
they are expected to discuss.
The approval (against the Society’s Byelaws and standards) of both hospital
and community pharmacies for preregistration training involves the submission
of a training programme from the training site. Community pharmacies are then
assessed by the Society’s inspectors, although hospital pharmacies are
not then separately assessed by inspectors. One reason for this difference is
the intensity of scrutiny hospital pharmacies already receive from other public
bodies (with which the Society liaises). The list of bodies able to go into hospital
pharmacies to inspect their training activity is a long one, and the Pharmaceutical
Services Negotiating Committee recently catalogued and described them. They range
from the National Audit Office to local patients’ forums.
Much fuller information about the Society’s approval of premises, standards
and preregistration training can be found on the Society’s website. |
Examination only exists to test memory skills
From Miss H. E. Porter, MRPharmS
Further to the letter entitled “What
has happened to the preregistration year?” (PJ, 6 November, p680) I would like to add my concerns. I
sat the registration examination for the second time in September and passed.
I was fortunate because my preregistration employer was willing and able
to keep me on for the three months before the retake was scheduled and
my rotational pharmacist post with my new employer was held for me. However,
like Concerned Pharmacist’s son, I envisage this is not the situation
for many others.
I am not disputing that there needs to be a formalised assessment for entry
onto the Register. However, I do not consider the current method to be
either appropriate or fair. The registration examination does not encompass
understanding of the evidence base behind drug therapy or test key skills
that are fundamental to being a successful pharmacist — approachability,
communication skills, thinking on your feet and being able to liaise with
a multitude of health care professionals.
I acknowledge that the performance standards are in place to assess these
skills but achievement of each is based on the opinion of an individual
tutor and is not benchmarked in any formal way. Each tutor may have different
criteria that they think preregistration trainees have to meet before they
are satisfied they have met each standard. This cannot ensure consistency.
In my opinion the examination merely exists to test ability to memorise
and locate information in the Drug Tariff, the ‘Medicines, ethics
and practice’ guide and the British National Formulary. These are
important reference sources, but surely the essence of being a good pharmacist
is the knowledge of where to look for information, the ability and skills
to apply it and an awareness of the limitations of these reference sources.
In practice, as I am sure many will agree, good pharmaceutical care extends
well beyond the remit of these reference sources.
Helen Porter
Leicester |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal