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Letters to the Editor
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Community pharmacy
Laxity of personal control is not a panacea for the public
From Mr B. D. Nathwani, MRPharmS
The paper, “Making the best use of the pharmacy workforce — a
consultation paper”, is a red herring full of Whitehall doublespeak
and unsupported statements. But its potential relevance in terms of the
pay and conditions for pharmacists, and for the safety and accessibility
of pharmaceutical services, should not be underestimated. For all the document’s
purported vision, the reality could be that, in the long term, immediate
and full face-to-face access to a pharmacist will disappear.
The paper alleges that there is a pharmacist shortage being filled by locums.
It misses the point that many choose to work as locums for a variety of
reasons and fails to enquire why. Will remote supervision and lax personal
control remove the problem of pharmacists choosing to work as locums rather
than as employees?
The paper goes on to declare that access to emergency hormonal contraception
and counselling will be improved and glibly states that “patient
safety must remain paramount at all times”. Will remote supervision
and lax personal control enhance the immediate face-to-face access and
counselling that the public enjoys at the moment?
Is it fair to hold pharmacists professionally responsible for work carried
out in their absence using standard operating procedures?
The paper also states that to employ a technician costs circa £25,000
as compared with £40,000 for a pharmacist. The new contract will
review employment costs for dispensing and other services. It is not rocket
science to determine what will happen next. While we as citizens should
applaud the Government for delivering services at a reduced cost to us
as taxpayers, we also need to consider whether the new service is a like-for-like
replacement.
Small independent pharmacies need to be especially wary as they are more
likely to carry out services and dispensing single-handedly. The threat
to the employment opportunities of employee pharmacists is also significant.
Once cost enquiries show that technicians can displace pharmacists in the
dispensing processes the remuneration for dispensing services will fall
drastically. This is why the new contract still favours volume dispensing
because volume, as opposed to service quality, is easily measured and thus
volume payments are easier to cut at a future date.
I support minor changes to personal control to help all pharmacists deliver
the new services within the new contract. However, wholesale changes to
supervision and laxity of personal control are not a panacea for pharmacy
or the public.
Bharat Nathwani
Council election candidate
Pinner, Middlesex |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal