Training required to fulfil public health role
Training for pharmacists to undertake public health roles is lacking, according to Jill Jesson, chairman of the Pharmacy Special Interest Group set up by the UK
Public Health Association.
“Pharmacists are over-trained for what they do and under-used for
what they know. And this must change,” she said at a debate held
during the UKPHA annual public health forum in Birmingham last week.
She said
she was concerned that pharmacists’ training did not always help
them to fulfil the extended clinical and professional roles that had
been created for them. Undergraduate training had not kept pace and was
still too science based. She was also concerned that some lecturers were
teaching out-of-date skills, and lacked expertise in public health.
Andrew Scott-Clark, director of public health at Swale Primary Care Trust,
agreed that although some pharmacists were taking on roles such as directors
of public health, there were still enormous opportunities for pharmacists
and they needed to delegate their dispensing role.
Miriam Armstrong, chief executive officer of PharmacyHealthLink, pointed
out that the charity had highlighted the lack of public health training
in the current curriculum and was in discussions with the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society in order to update it. |
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