Professional leadership body should not have a monopoly on education and training
To guard against complacency and inefficiency, the new professional leadership body for pharmacy should not have a monopoly on accrediting undergraduate courses and revalidating practitioners, according to the Council of University Heads of Pharmacy (CUHOP).
In a letter to the Department of Health, the CUHOP says that the General
Pharmaceutical Council, which it assumes will be responsible for the
accreditation of undergraduate education and training and the revalidation
of both pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, might choose to delegate
or subcontract the undertaking of these functions to one or more bodies.
The CUHOP proposes that the professional leadership body should not be
guaranteed to carry out these functions.
The letter also emphasises that the professional body should be a learned
organisation that promotes, facilitates and celebrates excellence. It
says that it should be at liberty to criticise Government or NHS policies
and performance in the areas of education and health care, as well as
other areas relevant to medicines research, development and use.
The CUHOP believes that membership of the leadership body should be voluntary.
However, if membership is made compulsory, the cost should be benchmarked
against similar bodies, such as the Association of British Dispensing
Opticians (annual fee £225) and membership should be open to appropriately
qualified non-pharmacists and people from overseas. The council suggests
that the organisation will have a faculty structure with entry being
by portfolio of evidence, most often including a postgraduate diploma
or postgraduate master’s qualification. There should be different
classes of membership, including member, student, associate and fellow,
it adds.
The CUHOP believes that the council of the leadership body should exclusively
or overwhelmingly be elected by and from its membership, with guaranteed
representation from each of the faculties and from each of the membership
categories.
Finally, the CUHOP says that it might be willing to come under the umbrella
of the professional leadership body, but, given its unique managerial
responsibilities, only if it could retain an independent and potentially
dissenting voice.
|
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
Acrobat
Reader