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· Reciprocity
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Letters to the Editor
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Reciprocity
Window dressing
From Mr I. Dean, MRPharmS
The announcement that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council
had decided to amend
its post-reciprocity requirements for Australian
and New Zealand pharmacists (PJ, 17 December 2005, p759) has gone unremarked,
and perhaps unnoticed, by Journal readers. For those who missed the news
it may be helpful to review the change and its likely effect.
The Council resolved that, after 1 July 2006, Australian and NZ pharmacists
will not be required to complete the 12-month overseas pharmacists’ assessment
programme at a British university. Instead they will be required to complete
a course and examination in British pharmacy law and ethics and the NHS
in their home countries.
After successful completion of the course, they will be required to complete
12 months of supervised practice in Britain and then sit the Society’s
registration examination. This reduces the training period in Britain
from 24 months to 12 months and coincides with the indication by the
British Government that working holiday visas are to be reduced from
24 months to 12 months.
It is difficult, even impossible, to imagine a circumstance where a young
Australian pharmacist will be prepared to spend his or her 12-month working
holiday completing supervised practice. This effectively limits the scheme
only to those pharmacists who are able to migrate to Britain.
Thus, although the door will not be closed entirely to Australian and
NZ pharmacists, few will be able to squeeze through the crack. Even fewer
Australian pharmacists are likely to be willing to do so.
There is no point in beating about the bush: from 1 July the number of
Australian pharmacists becoming registered to practise in Britain will
effectively fall to zero.
This will come as no surprise to the Council. In December 2005 the Society’s
head of accreditation, Damien Day, met in Australia with representatives
of Australian and NZ registering authorities to explain the changes.
I understand that Mr Day was advised then of the likely impact of the
changes.
In light of Mr Day’s meeting it is hard to reconcile the comment
of Alan Kershaw, a member of the adjudicating committee, that the amendments “provided
a practical solution to the Australia and New Zealand problem” — a
most unfortunately worded comment.
Far from being a practical solution, the Council’s amendments are
simply window dressing and have thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
The effect of the unilateral and unexplained dumping of the reciprocal
arrangements will remain the same: Australian (and presumably NZ) pharmacists
will rapidly become an extinct species in Britain.
I do not question the Society’s legal, professional and social
obligations to decide who is fit to practise in Britain. However, John
Ferguson (PJ, 24 September 2005, p374 PDF (70K)) comprehensively
showed the reasons the Council originally gave for ending the reciprocal
arrangements
to
be spurious.
In view of the concern being felt and expressed by the profession, and
perhaps even out of fairness to their former Australian and NZ colleagues,
now that the Council has finally resolved the Australia and NZ problem,
perhaps it will now take members into its confidence and provide its
real reasons.
Ian Dean
North Turramurra,
New South Wales, Australia
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PHILIP GREEN, deputy secretary and registrar, Royal Pharmaceutical
Society, replies:
When I met Australian and New Zealand registering
representatives in December 2005 we did discuss the likely impact
of the Society’s revised policy on additional education and training
requirements for overseas pharmacists as it might affect registrants
in those countries. It was clear that the change in policy could influence
the decision of some pharmacists to practise in the UK but Australasian
colleagues did recognise the positive features of the Society’s
proposed new procedures. At that time the Society was not aware of the
Government’s intention to reconsider the length of a working holiday
visa from 24 months to 12, which is unfortunate but beyond our control.
Whether Government policy will change remains to be seen but I agree
with Mr Dean that if it does it might have an influence on whether Australian
and NZ pharmacists decide to spend one year as a preregistration trainee
in the UK and that their reasons for doing so may have to be more compelling
than if they had been able to spend an additional year overseas on a
single visa.
Mr Dean is wrong to assert that the Society has not yet shared with
members the real reason for ending reciprocity: we have explained
our reasons fully
and have hidden nothing. For the record let me repeat the principal reason
for ending reciprocity: it does not allow us to exercise any influence over
the length, content, delivery or duration of education and training or even
to inquire into the education and training of anyone covered by such an agreement.
That is no way to regulate a profession. The Society’s decision to end
reciprocity was unilateral in the sense that Australian and NZ registering
authorities did not reciprocate but it was not alone in doing so among UK health
care regulators: the General Dental Council and General Medical Council did
the same thing for precisely the same reasons.
To return to my meeting in Australia, on behalf of both the President and
the Secretary and Registrar I undertook to review the requirement for Australian
and NZ pharmacists to enter a year of preregistration on a regular basis.
Members
should be reassured we are doing just that. We are not in a position to change
our policy at the moment but we are actively exploring what alternatives
are available to us. Mr Dean should be aware that we are maintaining a dialogue
with registering authorities in Australia and NZ and I will be discussing
progress
with them, on the Society’s behalf, at their next meeting in May. |
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