The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 278 No 7434 p49-50
13 January 2007

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• Pharmacy practice
• Health economics
• Dispensing errors
• Controlled drugs
• Ethics
• Adverse events
• Regulation
• Fitness to practise
• The Society (2)
• Retention fees (5)
• Pharmacy politicians
• The Journal (2)

Letters to the Editor

Retention fees

Prescribers' conversion fee should be waived

From Ms N. L. Barnett, MRPharmS

We were told that the annual retention fee that was introduced for supplementary prescribers from January 2007 is required to support additional services provided for prescribers by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, although the original registration fee was clearly understood to be a one-off payment. Furthermore, those who are converting our qualification to independent prescribing during 2007 are required to pay an additional £35 if we wish to register as independent prescribers this year.

It seems to me that the bad feeling created by collection of these fees will far outweigh the financial benefit to the Society. However, if the Society is intent on levying an annual registration fee for prescribers, which in itself is contentious, surely the additional fee for registered supplementary prescribers converting their qualification should be waived.

Nina Barnett
Pharmacist Prescriber
Edgware, Middlesex

Can I have a discount?

From Mr M. I. Hird, MRPharmS

I, too, am concerned at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s introduction of an annual retention fee for prescribers. The reasoning for this imposition is the extra work that pharmacist prescribing has generated for the Society.

Although there has undoubtedly been work to do, I wonder whether the Society intends to apply the same logic to all the interest groups it supports and regulates? Since I do not work as a community, hospital, veterinary or industrial pharmacist, I wonder if I am entitled to a discount since I do not use the support and regulatory services specifically developed for these fields?

Like Richard Thompson (PJ, 23/30 December 2006, p770) I do not think it unreasonable that these costs should have been incorporated into the overall increase in the retention fee, as they are for all other pharmacists.

Magnus Hird
Pharmacist Practitioner, Bloomfield Medical Centre, and National Prescribing Centre Trainer

I see no reason for an annual SP retention fee

From Mr D. A. Ellerby, MRPharmS

I write in support of the letters from Richard Thompson and Karen Liddell (PJ, 23/30 December 2006, p770) concerning the underhand and unnecessary shift from a one-off fee to an annual fee for supplementary and ultimately independent pharmacist prescribers.

I wrote to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in October 2005 asking for a justification of the need for an ongoing fee when surely an annotation is simply that — a mark in the margin of the Register to the effect that Joe (or Joanne) Bloggs, MRPharmS, has duly qualified as a supplementary prescriber.

Given that pharmacists are expected to behave ethically and carry out continuing professional development etc, there is no need of any further action on the part of the Society since the quality and standards of the work of any supplementary prescriber will be monitored on a case-by-case basis and certainly will come under scrutiny by the employer under the normal course of an annual review.

The reasons given to me by the Secretary and Registrar for an annual charge were:

• Administration of the Register

• Preparation and updating of the curriculum for supplementary and independent prescribing

• Accreditation of university providers of supplementary prescribing education and training (now 37)

• Reaccreditation of education providers to provide independent prescribing training

• Preparation and publication of a clinical governance framework for pharmacist prescribing

• Preparation and publication of a pharmacist prescribers’ pack

She added: “In addition, we have organised two conferences for prescribers and prescribing educators and we offer pharmacist prescribers access to a prescribers’ discussion forum. The PJ publishes a prescribing and medicines management supplement and we have commissioned research on pharmacist prescribing practice from the University of Bath.”

So, as we can see, the SP annotation fee is actually being used to subsidise existing Society staffing costs, subsidising academia and various events which are inaccessible to most of us and publications which (in my experience) are already in existence through various trusts and other bodies.

I can see no logical reason why supplementary prescribers should incur ongoing annual fees once their files have been duly annotated. I feel that as usual, I am in the grip of yet another fait accompli which will further amplify my distrust of the motives of our once great Society.

It appears that the Society is using any and every opportunity to milk its constituency without any obvious benefit to the constituents.

David Ellerby
Practice Pharmacist
Elgin, Morayshire

A kick in the teeth

From Mr D. M. Thornton, MRPharmS

I would like to support the views expressed by David Miller (PJ, 9 December 2006, p690) and Richard Thompson (PJ, 23/30 December 2006, p770) that the £35 annual retention fee for supplementary prescribers (SPs) is indeed a kick in the teeth from our representative body for those of us who are practising SPs.

I, too, found the justification for the change in policy a little hard to believe and the response from Peter Wilson (PJ, December 23/30 2006, p770) equally unsatisfactory. The justification is partly based upon a levy being placed on current SPs for the development of future courses and the accreditation of universities to provide these courses. If supplementary and indeed independent prescribing are aspirations for the profession, surely the profession as a whole should pay for this and not the few who are already delivering the aspiration.

I am not sure what justification there is for me to cover accreditation costs for education providers. Surely the universities should cover these costs themselves and build this into the course fees. In the managed services, individual pharmacists pay their own retention fees, a fee that has risen by 19 per cent for SPs this year (£267 to £318). I do not believe this rise is appropriate or can be justified.

Dave Thornton
Principal Clinical Pharmacist
University Hospital Aintree, Liverpool

A chilly squeeze

From Mr G. A. Fox, MRPharmS

I shared my working years between psychology and pharmacy and retired from both just over a year ago. The president of the British Psychological Society sent me a letter of congratulations with his personal wishes for my long, happy and healthy retirement. I was further informed that as a member for 30 years, I qualified for free membership for life and would also continue receiving free of charge every month The Psychologist, which, in its own field, is every bit as prestigious and informative as the PJ.

My retirement after being a practising pharmacist for 46 years evoked no response from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. This year I received confirmation of the renewal of my free membership to the BPS. It felt like a warm appreciative hug. The demand for £71 to renew my non-practising membership of the Society feels like a chilly squeeze.

Gerald Fox
Whipsnade, Bedfordshire

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