The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7481 p655
8 December 2007

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• Controlled drugs
• Locum pharmacy
• Medicines distribution
• Retention fees (2)
• Premises fees
• Supervision
• The profession
• Postgraduate education

Letters to the Editor

Postgraduate education

Technician to lead WCPPE

From Mr C. Ranshaw, FRPharmS

I was extremely disturbed to read the news report in the PJ (17 November 2007, p554) that a pharmacy technician (Lesley Morgan, technician member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council) has been appointed as the director of the Welsh Centre for Postgraduate Pharmaceutical Education (WCPPE). I need to make it clear at the outset that I know Lesley Morgan extremely well and have done for many years and my concerns are not personal.

The appointment of a pharmacy technician to lead postgraduate education for pharmacy in Wales sends completely the wrong message to pharmacists in Wales and to those professional medical, dental and nursing staff we are working ever more closely with.

This appointment will lack confidence and credibility not only with pharmacists in Wales but with our medical colleagues. I cannot even begin to imagine that postgraduate medical education and training would be led by a non-medically qualified director.

The heads of schools of pharmacy are expressing increasing concern at the decreasing number of pharmacist lecturers at the undergraduate level. At the moment all heads of schools of pharmacy are pharmacists; I find it inconceivable that a pharmacy technician could become a head of school, but this appointment is equivalent to that.

Continuing postgraduate education is an essential part of continuing professional development (CPD) and shortly all pharmacists will have to sign an undertaking of CPD to allow continuance on the Register in order to continue to practise. Our livelihoods are now to be heavily influenced and dependent upon a pharmacy technician. This appointment calls into question the ability and judgement of those making the appointment.

Funding for the WCPPE comes from the National Assembly for Wales and is administered through the Welsh Assembly Government. Did the fund holders have any input into this appointment and its process?

The WCPPE is managed by Cardiff University through the School of Pharmacy. The position of director at the WCPPE is a senior and specialised post for which there are few suitably qualified pharmacists. I did not see any national advertisement for this post, for example, in the PJ. Not to advertise such an important post for Wales to enable the best pharmacist applicants is a blunder of such magnitude that it shows a blatant disregard and disrespect for pharmacists in Wales.

This is a most unhelpful appointment at a time of radical change in the world of pharmacy and it demonstrates a complete lack of expertise and understanding by those making such momentous decisions for practising pharmacists.

Colin Ranshaw
Barry, Vale of Glamorgan

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