The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7479 p590
24 November 2007

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• Abortion
• NPA PMI bid
• Retention fees (5)
• The Society (2)
• The Council
• Community pharmacy
• Health care regulations
• Medicines distribution
• Ethics
• Locum pharmacy (3)
• Remuneration

Letters to the Editor

Remuneration

Plumbing as a paradigm

From Mr A. R. Cox, MRPharmS, and Mr C. Anton

David Sevege (PJ, 10 November 2007, p531 (PDF 50K)) revives the use of plumbers as a comparator for pharmacists’ remuneration. We noted that plumbers commonly appear to be the comparator of choice for pharmacists when complaining about remuneration, and decided to test this by searching the online version of The Pharmaceutical Journal for references to plumbing.

Since 2000, 23 letters have been published using plumbing as a comparator. Two of these concern the effect of professional regulation on pharmacists’ ability to work, one was concerned with comparative attractiveness to the opposite sex, while the remaining 20 used the plumbing profession as a bench mark for pay levels. Other trades mentioned in these letters were car mechanics, electricians, chefs, landscape gardeners, and painters and decorators.

Professional groups (such as dentists) with comparable training were rarely mentioned in these letters.

Example comments included “It now takes five years to qualify as a pharmacist, and when one gets there one is paid less than a plumber and is treated as an Untermensch” and “It is surely time we were charging for our knowledge and expertise. We all know how much an emergency plumber or car mechanic charges.

Notably similar comparisons have been noted in academic studies of female community pharmacists’ views on remuneration,¹ and have also been made by members of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council.

Although plumbing is arguably at least as old as pharmacy, and sanitation was recently voted the greatest medical advance in 150 years by readers of the BMJ,² the comparison is used to imply that pharmacists are undervalued. Complaints that pharmacists are underpaid using plumbers could be viewed as selective, when a typical community pharmacist manager’s salary is likely to be close to the 90 percentile gross national salary.

The other basis for the comparison is also the claim of pharmacy to be a profession, and is an attempt to differentiate pharmacy from a mere trade. The plumbing comparison perhaps reflects a concern that pharmacy is not valued as profession, or may indicate a lack of confidence of the profession itself.

We suggest that plumbing is a poor comparator for the profession of pharmacy, due to plumbers’ remuneration being directly linked to a market scarcity of plumbing skills rather than a valuation of its professionalism. More useful comparisons could be made with fellow professionals such as dentists, physicians or specialised nursing staff.

The focus should be on the valuable contribution that pharmacists could provide using their specialist skills to ensure the safe and effective use of medicines in the population. If society does not place a value on such activities, then it is up to the pharmacy profession to ensure that its role is more clearly marketed and recognised.

The paradigm of plumbing serves this cause badly.

Anthony Cox
Christopher Anton
Pharmacy Department
City Hospital, Birmingham

Conflicts of interest ARC is a pharmacist who recently refitted his own bathroom. CA has recently paid a large amount of money for a new boiler.

References

1. Gidman W, Hassell K, Day J, Payne K. Let’s get practical: does it pay for female community pharmacists to work? The Pharmaceutical Journal 2007;278:645–9.

2. Ferriman A. BMJ readers choose sanitation as greatest medical advance since 1840. BMJ 2007;334:111.

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