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The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 274 No 7338 p234
26 February 2005

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Letters

· Workforce
· The Society (2)
· Statutory Committee (3)
· Council election
· Overseas pharmacists
· The profession (2)

Letters to the Editor

Statutory Committee

A commonsense response? (Mr J. P. Smith)

Responsibility for registration lies with the Society (Dr B. B. Shetewi)

An unhelpful decision (Professor J. B. Harris)

A commonsense response?

From Mr J. P. Smith, MRPharmS

With reference to the reprimand of a superintendent pharmacist who had a poor command of English (PJ, 19 February, p218), when will the person or persons who registered this pharmacist be reprimanded, because common sense would suggest that this is appropriate?

J. P. Smith
Louth, Lincolnshire

Responsibility for registration lies with the Society

From Dr B. B. Shetewi, MRPharmS

I read, with disbelief the Statutory Committee report about the superintendent pharmacist with poor English and little grasp of his responsibilities (PJ, 19 February, p218). I believe that the responsibility lies entirely with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, which registered this pharmacist in the first place. That is how the rest of us get a bad name.

Bashir Shetewi
Leatherhead, Surrey

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Code of Ethics and Standards (part 2, para A2) states: “Pharmacist owners, superintendent pharmacists and pharmacist managers in hospitals and trusts or other fields of practice have a personal professional responsibility: … (i) to ensure that pharmacists and other staff employed by them are sufficiently competent in English.” EU legislation prevents the Society from refusing to register a pharmacist who is an EEA national and who has been awarded an “appropriate European diploma”.
— EDITOR

An unhelpful decision

From Professor J. B. Harris, MRPharmS

“The Statutory Committee has reprimanded a pharmacist whose problems with the English language and poor grasp of his professional responsibilities had led to a large number of errors and bad practices while he was acting as a superintendent pharmacist.” According to the report on the case (PJ, 19 February, p218), the chairman expressed his concern that the pharmacist should be able to communicate with members of the public and that he should truly understand what a member of the public might be saying to him. The committee agreed to a reprimand and a requirement that the pharmacist should reach Level 6 of the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) at the earliest possible date and certainly within three years.

At face value this might seem a rigorous requirement. In fact, even at Level 6 there will be inaccuracies, inappropriacies and misunderstandings, especially in unfamiliar situations. The majority of universities would not accept a student to any course requiring the ability to communicate with a wide range of clients with such a score at IELTS and most teachers of English would expect a speaker with an IELTS score below Level 6 to require between 10 and 20 weeks of intensive language training before an acceptable level of language was achieved.

The Statutory Committee will not have done much to help either the pharmacist concerned, the general public or our profession by coming to such an agreement.

John Harris
Director of International Postgraduate Studies
Faculty of Medical Sciences,
University of Newcastle upon Tyne

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