The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7488 p149-150
9 February 2008

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• Clarke Inquiry (2)
• Minor ailment scheme
• EHC
• WCPPE (2)
• Dispensing
• Community pharmacy
• PSNC
• Drug addiction
• The Society (2)

Letters to the Editor

Welsh Centre for Postgraduate Pharmaceutical Education (WCPPE)

Appointments

From Dr N. S. Doggett, MRPharmS

If the new director of the Welsh Centre for Postgraduate Pharmaceutical Education is a technician whose appointment was not advertised, why do the current vacancies for part-time continuing professional development facilitators/tutors, which were advertised in your pages, specify that the applicants should be pharmacists?

N. S. Doggett
Kington, Herefordshire

My concerns have not been allayed

From Mr C. Ranshaw, FRPharmS

I am grateful to Stephen Denyer for taking time to reply to my letter over my concerns about the appointment of a pharmacy technician to the post of director of the Welsh Centre for Post-Graduate Pharmacy Education (PJ, 22/29 December 2007, p711).

I accept that with the proliferation of schools of pharmacy I have not kept myself up to date with the numbers of heads of schools who are, sadly, not pharmacists. Since Professor Denyer is the heads of schools nominee for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council I would expect him to have greater awareness of this situation.

However, I have not been reassured by his letter about the appointment of a pharmacy technician, who is one of the elected technician representatives on Council, to the extremely important post of director of WCPPE.

One of my major concerns is transparency of the appointment based upon Nolan principles. The Pharmaceutical Journal of 1 December 2007 carried an advertisement for the post of assistant director to the equivalent organisation in Northern Ireland, allowing a wide audience to be aware of it.

The Welsh post was advertised somewhere in the ether for internal consumption only. How could the best pharmacists apply for this post if they were not aware of its existence?

In his reply, Professor Denyer mentions the Welsh Committee for the Professional Development of Pharmacy. I have lived and worked in Wales at the grass roots level for about 28 years, and have been involved with the profession helping bring about change over those years. So I am fully aware that the WCPDP commissions work from the WCPPE.

Was the WCPDP involved at any stage in the appointment process? Does the work it has already commissioned from WCPPE while it had a director who was a pharmacist need to be reviewed?

Professor Denyer informs us that this is a three-year contract of appointment. I understood that the post was to be an interim appointment only, so three years is surely stretching that definition. Professor Denyer has not allayed my concerns.

At this time of regulation and professional responsibilities for pharmacy and pharmacists being separated, we need a strong pharmacist leader to sit down in meetings to move the pharmacy profession forward.

I cannot accept that a non-pharmacist director has the depth of experience that a pharmacist would bring to the table to engage in continuing professional development for pharmacists.

The letter from Catherine Duggan and others (PJ, 26 January 2008, p82) highlights this lack of realistic engagement in CPD.

I stand by my original letter and my concerns.

Colin Ranshaw
Barry, Vale of Glamorgan

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