Statutory Committee publishes ethnicity data for its 2005 inquiries
Ethnicity data relating to individuals who appear before the Statutory Committee of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society are now being included in the committee's annual reports.
The data are derived from census information collected by the Society.
The committee’s annual report for 2005 shows that of 16 pharmacists
who were ordered to be removed from the Register in 2005, eight described
themselves as white British, one as “white other” and two
as Indian. Ethnicity data were not available for the remaining five because
they failed to return the Society’s census form.
Of 18 pharmacists who were reprimanded by the committee, two were white
British, four “white other”, four Indian and one Chinese,
with the remaining seven not having returned the census form. The one
pharmacist who received an admonishment in 2005 was classed as white
British.
The report also says that the committee is now using its own audit and
monitoring form to collect data on the ethnicity, age, disability and
field of practice of respondents.
The report says that in 2005 the committee sat for a total of 177 hours
on 41 days. It considered 57 inquiries and two applications for restoration
to the Register. Forty-five of the inquiries related to allegations of
misconduct, eight arose from convictions and four were inquiries into
both convictions and separate allegations of misconduct. Excluding one
atypical case that was heard over three days, the average length of an
inquiry was three hours.
The report says that 16 of the inquiries into allegations of misconduct
incorporated concerns relating to the pharmacists’ health, and
it expresses concern that the Society still has no health committee able
to deal more appropriately with pharmacists whose fitness to practise
is impaired by reason of ill health. It says: “The Society has
repeatedly emphasised concerns to the Department [of Health] about its
inability to protect the public from ill pharmacists and continues to
be concerned at delays to the anticipated Section 60 Order [under the
Pharmacy Act 1999]”.
The report also notes that the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence,
in its scrutiny of regulation in the health care professions, has not
referred any decision of the Statutory Committee to the High Court under
the powers conferred on it by Section 29 of the National Health Service
Reform and Health Care Professions Act 2002.
The annual report for 2005 can be downloaded from the Statutory
Committee section of the Society’s website.
|
The
Pharmaceutical Journal