Council approves procedure for the overseas accreditation of foreign pharmacy qualifications
The Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has agreed a procedure under which pharmacists who have qualified in countries with education and training requirements similar to those in the UK can demonstrate, within the jurisdiction in which they are licensed to practise, their suitability to enter preregistration training in the UK.
At the December
Council meeting, the Council was reminded that in 2003
it decided to end all reciprocal registration agreements for overseas
pharmacists except for those who had qualified in Northern Ireland or
elsewhere in the European Economic Area, where EC legislation applied.
A consequence of ending these agreements was that pharmacists from the
countries concerned who wished to join the Register would have to take
the Society’s approved entry route for overseas pharmacists, which
was a one-year, full time conversion qualification — the overseas
pharmacists assement programme (OSPAP) — taught by one of three
UK universities, followed by a year’s preregistration training.
The Society accepted that this route was probably too onerous for pharmacists
from countries where pharmacy training was similar to that in the UK.
For this reason the Society had explored alternative recognition routes
for pharmacists in the latter category. Because the current OSPAP was
a robust, quality-assured programme, any variant had to exhibit similar
qualities and, in particular, had to be equitable, of a high standard,
legal and cost-effective.
The advantage of the current OSPAP was that the syllabus, graduate outcomes
and assessments were common across all UK providers. If the Society decided
to allow in-country variants it had to be sure that the end products
were equivalent and that at the point of first registration in Britain
applicants had had equivalent educational experiences. Using the existing
OSPAP as a starting point was a logical way of doing this. The Education
Committee therefore recommended that the Society should allow OSPAPs
to be delivered outside the UK in the the circumstances outlined.
The Society’s head of accreditation, Damien Day, told the Council
that the current process took two years in the UK. Year one was a specialist
programme, which probably cost £20,000 to £25,000 once one
included fees and the cost of living. Nevertheless, it meant students
spent a year immersing themselves in British practice. They then entered
the preregistration year. If they passed the OSPAP, the preregistration
year and the examination, they were eligible to enter the Register.
The Society had been looking at the first year, because it was clear
that in countries such as Australia and New Zealand much of the ground
had already been covered. Rather than require one year of study in Britain,
the proposal was to remove the common elements and wrapping up what was
left (such as British law and ethics and the context of the NHS) as a
course that could be run in the country in question. That would reduce
the cost considerably and students would need to spend only one year
in Britain before registration rather than two. The process would only
work where there was a lot of common ground, as in Australia and New
Zealand and perhaps Canada. For other countries the existing route would
be used.
Alan Kershaw, a member of the Adjudicating Committee, said that the existing
OSPAP was expensive, laborious, uncertain and achieved no added value.
He hoped the proposal would be accepted in its entirety. It provided
a practical solution to the Australia and New Zealand problem, and would
open the way to people from other countries.
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