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Letters to the Editor
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Supervision
Let us put patient safety first
From Mr G. B. Green, MRPharmS
I write with respect to your news
item “Idea that pharmacists
can leave premises accepted” (PJ, 19 March, p323). I have read
the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s response to the Department of
Health consultation document “Making the best use of the pharmacy
workforce”, but I cannot find any detailed report of Council discussions
in your columns, which is perhaps not surprising since the consultation
document was only published just before Christmas 2004.
May I ask what mandate the Council believes it has on such a fundamental
issue as pharmacy supervision? The last time that I can recall that this
subject being discussed by the membership was at a special general meeting
on 9 April 1989. Then any such liberalisation of pharmacist supervision
was strongly rejected (PJ, 15 April 1989, p438).
I also find surprising the statement by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating
Committee, that “a pharmacist might, in future, be able to leave
the pharmacy”, in the wake of the your report from the local pharmaceutical
committees’ conference that “contractors
want to keep the pharmacist supervision requirements” (PJ, 5 March, p261) and was
against the idea of pharmacists working “off site” after
delegating other staff to continue to serve the public. Members might
have hoped that the Society would have taken note of that supervision
debate in formulating its response on this subject.
Having discussed this topic with a variety of owners and managers in
community pharmacy, I find there is no support for permitting pharmacists
to absent themselves from pharmacy premises while still allowing dispensing
and the sale of medicines (other than general sale list items) to continue.
There is a belief that this could soon evolve into a service provided
by each multiple head office via a dedicated telephone helpline in each
branch, thus permitting protracted absence and even one pharmacist covering
several pharmacies.
Were that to happen the role of the locum pharmacist would be redundant.
So, too, might the need for the plethora of “100 hours a week” pharmacies
that the DoH is hoping to see established under the new control of entry
regulations which became effective on April 1, when an NHS 24 hour help
line telephone service, manned by a pharmacist, could replace them.
Should we pharmacists not insist on putting patient safety first and
reject calls for such a radical change in supervision?
Gerry Green
Green Pharmacy Consultants
Lewes, East Sussex
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DAVID PRUCE, director of practice and quality improvement, Royal
Pharmaceutical Society, replies:
Supervision has always been a controversial
topic for
pharmacy. The issue of supervision has been raised with the profession
on a number of occasions since the special general meeting in 1989.
For example, it was debated in The Pharmaceutical Journal in 2001
(PJ, 20
October 2001, pp577–81) and again in 2002 following the publication
of the Department of Health’s discussion document “Pharmacy
workforce in the new NHS” (PJ, 5 October 2002, p480).
In deciding how to respond to the Department of Health’s paper “Making
best use of the pharmacy workforce”, the issue was discussed first with
both the Practice Committee and the Law and Ethics Committee. It was also discussed
with the Welsh Executive to help inform its response to the Welsh consultation
on the same subject. The Council then fully discussed a draft response at its
February meeting. This led to an amended draft being sent to all Council members
for further comment before a final draft was signed off by the Officers of
the Council (President, Vice-President, Immediate Past President and Treasurer). |
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal