The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7487 p106
2 February 2008

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Responsible pharmacist plans not viable in hospital

Responsible pharmacist proposals are largely unworkable in registered hospital pharmacies and could have a major destabilising effect on hospital pharmacy practice, according to the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists.

If the Government’s proposals are implemented they are likely to lead to hospitals deregistering their premises, a move that the guild believes would be a retrograde step (see Panel below).

The guild explains that clinical and managerial functions are often separate in hospitals for reasons of economy. A duty pharmacist, who may be newly qualified, provides clinical oversight while a senior pharmacist has overall operational responsibility for a section or dispensary (the role proposed for the responsible pharmacist).

The guild believes that requiring the responsible pharmacist to spend more than 50 per cent of his or her time on the registered hospital premises would be unnecessary and a waste of resources. In particular, out-of-hours arrangements using junior pharmacists could not operate.

“It would be regrettable for financial, logistical and patient care reasons if the regulations were to be so inflexible as to not recognise hospital practice,” the guild says. Either the regulations need to be flexible or specific guidance should be written for the hospital setting, it adds.