PETER BURLEY, head of preregistration, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, replies:

The registration systems for technicians and for pharmacists are different and they are designed to suit the different needs of the two groups.

The registration examination (and its syllabus) cannot be seen in isolation as an optional extra which could be dropped without difficulty. There is a larger picture of different assessments at different stages which build up into a full portfolio of scrutiny on behalf of the public.

The schools of pharmacy, working to the indicative syllabus, carry out their own assessments from admission to the schools through to their own final examinations. These concentrate on academic knowledge and skills and use assessments such as essays and dissertations. This type of assessment is not then repeated at future stages. In the preregistration year, pharmacy employers (as preregistration tutors) are working to performance standards and focus on competence in the work place and professionalism. The types of assessment they use include interviews and Objective Structured Clinical Evaluations — again not replicated by the Society at the next stage. The Society then tests the application of knowledge using the registration examination syllabus and a multiple choice question examination format. Lastly employers, again, assess pharmacists’ fitness for purpose (for employment) at the recruitment stage and may use techniques such as psychometric testing, which may not have been relevant at a previous stage.

All these assessments operate in the knowledge of each other to build up into a full portfolio of testing and quality assurance over the five years from admission to a school of pharmacy to a first professional post. Each of the three assessing authorities assesses what falls within its remit and uses the best tools for that job. This means that no one of the three could defer to any other one (or two), nor could a technique ideal for one stage (eg, a dissertation or an OSCE) be guaranteed to be appropriate for any other stage, nor could any one stage be safely dropped. For comparison, the full range of equivalent assessments is used in medical education and there are no proposals in that profession to drop any element of assessment.

The Society, through its Education Committee, is currently reviewing these arrangements to position itself to implement expected new legislation. Until then the registration examination — as currently constituted — is an essential element of public protection.

The Society does not, therefore, plan to change any one aspect of progression to the Register in isolation from the others and does not now plan to register pharmacy graduates in the same way as technicians.