Cross-sector experience for preregistration trainees to be the norm — but not mandatory
The Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has dropped its long-standing commitment to make cross-sector experience (CSE) a mandatory part of preregistration training.
It agreed to do so at the February
Council meeting on the recommendation
of a working group, which had concluded that there was not enough capacity
within the provision of preregistration training to ensure that every
trainee would be able to experience both hospital and community pharmacy.
The Council will continue to expect all trainees to have gained experience
of both the patient-centred sectors, but it has moved away from a “one
size fits all” approach on how this experience is gained and taken
a more pragmatic view.
The main points to emerge from the Council’s discussion were a
confirmation of the value of CSE, the need to define CSE as learning
outcomes, the recent changes in CSE’s external environment and
a wider range of options for achieving the competencies required at registration — not
just the physical movement round different locations.
The Council complimented the profession on the strength and value of
the CSE scheme and of the alternate sector experience.
After the Council meeting, the Society’s head of preregistration,
Peter Burley, said: “The Council took the working party’s
advice to define CSE more in terms of learning outcomes than as a sequence
of different physical locations. This decision was supported by proposals
for developmental work in the preregistration year for tutors and trainees
and by a recognition that more and more undergraduates are gaining clinical
experience during their four years’ MPharm.”
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal