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Letters to the Editor
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Community pharmacy
Patients are being put at risk
From Mr S. J. Hadley, MRPharmS
In your item “Locums
vote with their feet over poor conditions” (PJ,
13 November, p703) I note that Lynsey Balmer, head of professional ethics
at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, urges pharmacists to act on genuine
concerns where the safety of patients and the public is at issue. Presumably
this is instead of voting with their feet and not going back to pharmacies
where poor conditions, lack of support staff and illegal activities are
a problem.
In Chemist & Druggist (16 October, p22) there was an article by a
locum, David Morgan, expressing just such concerns. I would urge you
to read it. I would also urge you to read the letters pages of the subsequent
four weeks’ issues for the views of many more locums on these matters.
I am also a locum and I agree with David Morgan and with all of those
who have written in about his article. I have worked in places that have
been recently inspected and given a clean bill of health. It is just
as well I am not an inspector because I would have been tempted to close
them down. Obviously there is no point in my reporting any specific concerns
to the Society (when it has finished working on guidance to support me
in so doing) if the Society’s own inspectors do not see any problems.
If the conditions reported in the article and subsequent letters are
true then the safety of patients is at serious risk in a large number
of British pharmacies. The introduction of standard operating procedures
in such places will be pointless since no one will have the time even
to read them. Application of the fruits of CPD will not happen in these
places for the same reason nor will there be any extended roles undertaken.
As a locum I am able to work as a pharmacist, to use common sense and
to concentrate on getting the work done (and voting with my feet of course).
These are luxuries these days. Does the Society really not know why there
is a workforce crisis?
Stephen John Hadley
Osbaldwick,
York
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JACKIE GILTROW, chief inspector, fitness to practise and legal affairs
directorate, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, replies:
Although I cannot
comment on this specific case, I am most concerned to hear that the
author has been working in a pharmacy where conditions are such as
to impose
a serious risk to patient safety. The Society’s inspectorate take
their duties seriously and routinely visit every registered retail pharmacy
approximately every two years. Where there are serious concerns about
the standards of pharmacy premises and serious public safety issues at
stake, the inspectors will take relevant action, which may include issuing
verbal or written advice and arranging a revisit ahead of schedule to
check on progress. In extreme cases enforcement action is taken against
pharmacists and/or owners of pharmacies and these cases are considered
by the Society’s fitness to practise committees. The inspectors
do not have the power to “close premises down” as the power
to remove premises from the Register is one reserved for the Statutory
Committee following a hearing.
I would encourage any pharmacist working in conditions which pose
a serious risk to public safety to come forward and report the details
to the Society, in order
that appropriate action can be taken and I would be happy to discuss the
particular details of this case with the author. |
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal