Society issues response to the fifth Shipman report
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has issued its response to the Fifth Report of the Shipman
Inquiry chaired by Dame Janet Smith.
The Society broadly welcomes the report’s recommendations, many
of which it believes have implications for the regulation of all health
care professionals. In particular, it supports the view of the principles
and aims that should underpin a health care regulator’s fitness-to-practise
procedures. These are that the procedures must be: capable of scrutiny;
transparent; thorough, careful and of high quality; properly resourced
in every aspect; performed by persons who are suitably qualified and
properly trained to carry out the procedures.
The Society’s response does, however, raise a number of concerns
about the recommendations. For instance, the Society believes that the
wider implications of the recommendations need to be considered, in particular
their implications for secondary care and the impact that any changes
will have on arrangements in Scotland and Wales.
The Society is also concerned about the regulations not being flexible
enough, creating a risk-adverse culture that would curtail innovation
and creativity in the pharmacy profession. The Society also rejects the
report’s suggestion that provisions should be subject to primary
legislation and rules, since this is, the Society argues, contrary to
the aims of trying to achieve simple and flexible legislation and reserving
operational matters to guidance documents. The recommendation that primary
care trusts should be able to issue warnings to GPs and impose financial
penalties on them also raises concern from the Society, which argues
that clinical judgements that are in an individual patient’s interest
may be at variance from disseminated guidance and that any complaints
system needs to recognise this.
The Society disagrees with the report’s recommendation that consideration
should be given to appointing a body of full-time, or nearly full-time,
panellists who could sit on fitness-to-practise panels of all the health
care regulatory bodies. “Having professionals from similar professional
backgrounds as part of the judgement process provides an important safeguard
for both the public and the professional,” the Society argues.
The response is available via the fitness-to-practise
section of the
Society’s website. |
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