The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7459 p18-19
7 July 2007

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• Supervision (2)
• Community pharmacy (2)
• Medication errors
• Agenda for change
• White paper
• Counterfeit medicines
• Recalls
• Pfizer (4)

Letters to the Editor

White Paper

New college should include technicians

From Mr D. G. Swanson, MRPharmS

As a registered pharmacist for 27 years, I have followed the “future of pharmacy” debate with interest, amusement, disappointment and a sense of déjà vu.

Creating a professional college of pharmacy (royal or otherwise) would be the best way to promote the profession and complement the new regulatory body, but only if it includes pharmacy technicians. Having worked entirely in hospital pharmacy I have seen the value of the BTEC/NVQ qualification and the development of the technician role to the point where it is now fundamental and integral to the delivery of hospital pharmacy. The expanded technician role has released pharmacist time across a range of activities and delivers medicines management functions at ward level that complement the pharmacist’s clinical role.

It is interesting to note that in the development process the technicians relinquished some of their former roles to unqualified staff, in contrast to some pharmacists who wanted to release nothing at all. For those who believe that pharmacy technicians should be excluded from any new professional body, let me remind them that even a pharmacist-only college will not be “pure”, as many petty rivalries and shibboleths — primary care, secondary care, industrial, academic, etc — may remain.

Many of our profession’s problems lie within our attitude and response to change, which is (sadly) often introspective and defensive, perhaps even paranoid, believing everybody is out to get us. Although there is rivalry between physicians, surgeons and GPs, each takes the positive advantage of the others’ skills. The consultant surgeon whose patient develops a post-operative medical problem has no hesitation in referring on to a physician, while a consultant physician whose patient has broken a hip after a fall in the ward quickly requests an operation from a surgeon. Both consultants will gladly return the responsibility for a patient’s care to the GP after the hospital episode.

Any college of pharmacy worthy of the name must embrace all those who practise within the profession and make use of the wide variety of knowledge and skills available.

What is needed is strong, positive leadership and I fear that, if we do not find it soon, our profession will become like the Cheshire cat in ‘Alice in Wonderland’ which “vanished quite slowly, beginning with the end of the tail and ending with the grin” or, in our case, the anxious frown.

Derek Swanson
Liverpool

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