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Letters to the Editor
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Retention fees
Unjustifiable increase
From Mr K. M. Pearson, MRPharmS
I write on behalf of the members of the Pharmacist Prescribers
E-mail Discussion Forum in relation to the proposed
new registration fees for pharmacist prescribers (PJ, 29 July, p142). All pharmacists
who have taken the decision to train and practise as supplementary
prescribers have undertaken considerable additional training and accept
that there will be an inevitable increase in their required levels
of continuing professional development to maintain competency though
knowledge of therapeutics, but also physical examination skills and
improved understanding of pathophysiology.
The skills associated with supplementary prescribing do not form part
of the framework under which NHS pharmacists can gain additional remuneration
under the Agenda for Change bandings, and it is unlikely that those of
us who seek to become independent pharmacist prescribers will achieve
a higher banding and, therefore, we accept the additional responsibility
the better to care for our patients and to demonstrate our professionalism
and skills without higher financial rewards.
We have to express our dismay that the Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society should seek to penalise supplementary prescribing pharmacists
financially for our endeavours. We, therefore, have to ask what additional
support we will receive for our £35 additional fees. We currently
receive no support from the Society to maintain or develop our skills
as prescribers. For our additional contributions, will our local Society
inspector seek to visit us while running our clinics to offer advice
and guidance on how to improve our consultation skills perhaps?
Many of us work with nurses who are prescribers and pay no additional
fees to be registered as such with the Nursing and Midwifery Council.
I do not work with optometrists or physiotherapists, but I doubt their
professional bodies have such a mercenary approach to penalising members
who have taken it upon themselves to train and practise as prescribers.
If pharmacist prescribing is held in high esteem, and as one of the key
developments for future pharmacists by the Society’s Council, it
has a strange way of showing it.
Keith Pearson
Manchester
| |
LIZ GRIFFITHS, head of the Secretary and Registrar’s
office, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, replies:
The notice period
for the
proposal to change the byelaws has not yet closed. Comments received
by the Secretary and Registrar’s office before 27 September
2006 will be passed to the Privy Council when authority is sought
to change the byelaws. |
Consider BSHP membership
From Mr R. C. Mills, MRPharmS
There is understandable concern among members over the recent decision
by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council to increase the retention
fee for non-practising members to £60. As a result, it is conceivable
that members may follow Bill
Brookes (PJ, 26 August, p260) in considering
resignation from the Society. I suspect that few retired members do this
without serious thought and that most will feel regret at losing touch
with the profession which they have practised and supported for decades.
May I suggest that, at a considerably lower subscription of £20,
these members might consider joining the British Society for the History
of Pharmacy. Retired members of the profession have lived through major
changes in pharmacy and are, in many cases, now part of the history of
the profession. The BSHP arranges, with the Society, a series of meetings
throughout the year at Lambeth. In addition, membership of the BSHP will
allow members to maintain contact with pharmacy and they will also receive
quarterly a copy of Pharmaceutical Historian and the privilege of using
the Society’s library.
Application forms for membership may be obtained from BSHP, 840 Melton
Road, Thurmaston, Leicester LE4 8BN (tel 0116 264 0083, e-mail bshp@associationhq.org.uk)
Roger Mills
Honorary Treasurer, British Society
for the History of Pharmacy |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal