The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 274 No 7339 p261
5 March 2005

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Pharmacy contractors want to keep the pharmacist supervision requirements

Representatives of pharmacy owners have made it clear that they went to retain the requirement that pharmacists supervise everything that happens in their pharmacies.

Speaker after speaker in a debate at this week’s local pharmaceutical committees’ conference expressed concern that the Department of Health’s community pharmacy skill-mix consultation, which closes on 11 March, seemed to assume that pharmacists want to be able to leave their pharmacies unsupervised (PJ, 18/25 December 2004, p873).

Salim Jiwa (Sutton, Merton and Wandsworth LPC) summed up the debate: We support supervision. The pharmacist has got to be on the premises. Supervision is non-negotiable.”

Many speakers referred to the emphasis that the profession had placed over many years that community pharmacists offer immediate advice and care.

“The public regard pharmacies as their personal local first-aid health service,” Norman Dean (Norfolk LPC) said. “If you remove the pharmacist, that goes out the window along with all the work of the past 30 or 40 years.”

But there was also acceptance that the traditional concept of supervision is no longer appropriate. Mr Dean added: “This LPC accepts that the old concept is no longer applicable, but the pharmacist should not be allowed off the premises for any time other than very short periods.”

Terry Silverstone (Kingston, Richmond and Twickenham LPC) said: “When PCTs commission services from us for enhanced roles, it will be because they expect us to be there.”

Before the debate, Alastair Buxton, head of NHS services for the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee, said that any changes to the supervision requirement should support the new pharmacy contract. Skill-mix decisions should be patient-focused and should mean that a pharmacist was always reasonably available.

“If the pharmacist is off the premises he should be immediately contactable by telephone,” he said. “The pharmacist should be available to provide advice to patients in person or over the telephone when required and should be personally available to patients with reasonable promptness.”