The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7473 p416
13 October 2007

Society summary

Society will be a signatory to EEA fitness-to-practise memorandum

The Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has agreed that the Society will be a signatory to a Memorandum of Understanding between EEA competent authorities on the exchange of fitness-to-practise information.

Presenting the memorandum to the October Council meeting, Martha Pawluczyk, the Society’s overseas registration manager, explained that the memorandum was a result of a working party, Health Professions Crossing Borders, which was set up following the UK presidency of the EU. It formed an agreement on proactive and reactive information sharing between regulators within Europe, which had now been subsumed into a MoU.

The Council heard that the Department of Health and the Alliance of UK Health Regulators on Europe were keen to get EEA regulators to sign up to it.

“We are a net importer of health care professionals,” explained Mrs Pawluczyk. “We have a lot of professionals moving and the numbers are increasing. We would like to have information about the professional, their qualifications and their fitness-to-practise status communicated to us.

“We will be asking European regulators, when we receive an application, to divulge information. We would also wish regulators to warn us in advance of disciplinary action that they may have taken against an individual who may at some stage seek registration with us, relying perhaps on establishment in another member state where he has a clean record.”

She asked the Council to agree that the Society become a party to the MoU and that the Society encourage other competent authorities with which it worked also to become signatories.

The Council agreed.