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Letters to the Editor
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Continuing professional development (CPD)
A high price to pay?
From Mr J. A. Baker, FRPharmS
We are paying a high price for the changes being introduced by the Royal
Pharmaceutical Society’s Council and Officers at the behest of Government.
We are having to contend with a major increase in our retention fees that
is, at least in part, due to the bureaucracy associated with regulatory
changes; mandatory continuing professional, development imposed on us by
the Government; plus alienation of many pharmacists with loss of some from
the Register as a result of the clumsy and insensitive way in which changes
have been framed and implemented.
What will be achieved by all these changes? Assurance that pharmacists
on the “practising” register are competent and safe? I doubt
it.
CPD is undoubtedly of great value in helping well-motivated pharmacists
extend and update their knowledge but it does not guarantee competence
or safety. It is mainly concerned with only one component of competence,
ie, knowledge. Furthermore, assessment of CPD examines the pharmacist’s
CPD record, not his or her performance, and it is possible for unscrupulous
pharmacists to falsify their CPD records. Other components of competence — appropriate
attitudes, behaviours and skills — are largely outside the scope
of CPD.
Reflecting the great diversity and complexity of pharmacy practice, pharmacists
are expected to select topics for CPD that are relevant to their personal
practice needs. However, pharmacists often move to different areas of practice
or regularly work in more than one area of practice. The Code of Ethics
places responsibility on the individual pharmacist to ensure that he or
she has the requisite knowledge and skills for his or her personal area
of practice. It is clearly essential, and implicit in the code, that all
pharmacists are aware of their own limitations. But I cannot see how CPD
makes a “practising” pharmacist safer in this respect than
a “non-practising” pharmacist.
The concept that the public will be protected by a system that requires
individuals, often working alone and not always well motivated, to determine
and satisfy their own knowledge requirements, with no independent check
other than of the CPD record and no provision for addressing other important
components of competence, seems to me to be seriously flawed. In reality,
protection of the public relies more than anything else on the self-awareness
and integrity of each individual pharmacist.
The Society has been hoodwinked by a Government obsessed with control but
seemingly indifferent to the chaos that may arise from attempts to implement
its ill thought-out policies.
John Baker
Horsham,
West Sussex |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal