The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 275 No 7367 p339
17 September 2005

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· Homoeopathy (5)
· Dermatology
· Spacer devices
· The profession
· Best use of medicines
· Pharmacists in the media
· Reciprocity
· Return to practice
· The Society (4)

Letters to the Editor

Return to practice

Society’s view is too lax

From Mr J. D. Henderson, MRPharmS

I write regarding the news story about the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s view that pharmacists taking a break of five years should be regarded as being unfit ever to practise again (PJ, 3 September, p275). This is too lax. I regard pharmacists taking an annual break of 14 days as being a danger to the public, which must be protected, when they return to work. I recommend a maximum of 10 days holiday annually, taken as single days, and including four hours of verifiable continuing education each day. Those pharmacists who insist on taking an annual break should be examined online via the Society’s website, on the first day of their return to work. A score of 80 per cent and below would mean immediate removal from the Register, without the possibility of reinstatement. Pharmacists in the borderline 81 to 85 per cent range should be required to present themselves in front of a suitable committee and beg for forgiveness. If they are judged to show insufficient humility they should be struck off. Where the committee is unsure, the pharmacist should be assigned to a course of continuing education and re-education so that he (or she) understands his failings to the public, which must be protected. He can then be reassessed.

I would also like to mention weekends. Many pharmacists gladly work Saturdays, leaving Sundays for continuing education and rigorous contemplation of their responsibilities to the public, which must be protected. However, some pharmacists take both Saturday and Sunday off. I feel that this type of pharmacist is letting us down. Here, I recommend that groups of us should organise ourselves so that we can continuously seek out and save this type of pharmacist from his (or her) aberrant ways. If, after every effort, we find that he cannot be saved we must inform the director of fitness to practise of our sad conclusion and recommend removal from the Register in the interests of the public, which must be protected.

Finally, I recommend the Society produce a book of rules and thoughts and parables to illustrate our duties to the public, which must be protected. Perhaps chants can be included so that we can start each day with one united mind communing from pharmacy to pharmacy across the nation and become one glorious awareness of our duties to the public, which must be protected.

John Dixon Henderson
Consett, Co Durham

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