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The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 277 No 7430 p690
9 December 2006

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Letters to the Editor

Technicians

Accredited checking technician status lost when leaving Boots

From Ms V. Standing, RegPharmTech

I am a former employee of Alliance Boots who achieved accredited checking technician status within the company and I have been qualified for 16 months. One of the criteria with this course requires one to re-register every two years to maintain the qualification. As this date approached I began to make enquiries concerning the matter. On contacting Boots The Chemists, I was told that it would not be possible to re-register with it having left the company. I spoke to other pharmacy technicians who have worked for other companies and found that this was not the case for them even though the individuals had not funded the course themselves. I then made more enquiries with other training organisations which offer this course and was extremely disappointed to find out that they could not help me either.

I now find myself in a situation where I will have to restart the course again if I want to maintain my current status. Considering this is a nationally recognised qualification, I think it is unprofessional of them not to inform potential candidates of this situation when we have put so much time and effort into qualifying. I thought it necessary to alert both current and future accredited checking technicians working for Alliance Boots that their hard work may be in vain if they wish to progress outside the company.

Victoria Standing
Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire

PRADIP PATEL, pharmacy superintendent at Boots The Chemists, responds:

In order to respond to this question, it may be helpful to separate registration as a pharmacy technician and accuracy checking training. Once an individual registers as a pharmacy technician, their registration remains valid as long as they adhere to the Code of Ethics and undertake continuing professional development.

In relation to accuracy checking training, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has endorsed a framework for the training and reaccreditation that outlines a model of good practice. Alliance Boots follows the recommendations of this framework and has processes in place to support good practice and ensure patient safety.

When an individual who undertakes the task of accuracy checking moves to another employer, the new supervising pharmacist has a responsibility under the Pharmacists Code of Ethics (Part 2 A1 (f)) to ensure that any delegated tasks are delegated to persons competent to perform them.

Therefore, the responsibility does lie with the new employer to put in place a process to meet the requirements of the Code of Ethics.

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