The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7482 p667
15 December 2007

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News summary

Council supports two-hour maximum absence for responsible pharmacists

The Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, after a named vote, has agreed with a recommendation made by the Society’s law and ethics committee that responsible pharmacists should only be absent from a pharmacy for a maximum of two hours per day.

The recommendation appears in a draft document responding to the proposed Responsible Pharmacist Regulations and considered at the December Council meeting this week. The Government’s proposal is that responsible pharmacists could be absent for up to three hours in any one period of absence.

The committee’s document, the result of over 18 months’ work, also recommends that the Society should not agree with a proposal that the regulations should specify a percentage of time a responsible pharmacist should spend in a pharmacy. However, if the Government were to specify a percentage, this should be 75 per cent of the working day. Not all Council members agreed with these recommended responses.

A fuller report will be published in The Journal next week.