The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7494 p332
22 March 2008

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• Darzi review
• The profession
• Tuberculosis
• Euthanasia
• Benevolent Fund
• Audit
• Minor ailment scheme
• Community pharmacy
• The Society
• Pharmacy in the media

Letters to the Editor

The profession

DoH does not always take account of evidence

From Mr S. I. Dajani, MRPharmS

Andy Murdock thinks that pharmacists are “rubbish” at gathering evidence (PJ, 8 March 2008, p265). Nonsense. Pharmacists are great at gathering evidence and it is about time we stopped allowing the Department of Health to fool us by using this as a tool for inaction.

For even where there has been irrefutable evidence of the usefulness of services (such as health screening through pharmacies, minor ailment referral schemes, patient group directions and of the public’s confidence in using pharmacy) the DoH has prevaricated and failed to secure funding for consistency of service or for roll-out to more pharmacies.

Conversely, where there has been a lack of evidence this has not stopped the DoH making policies damaging to pharmacy.

Where is the resounding evidence, for example, that a separate professional body will do any better for the profession or be self-sustaining as a voluntary body that members will have to pay a second fee to join? Where is the evidence that the more costly General Pharmaceutical Council will be a better regulator than what we have already? (Indeed, Shipman and all the other health scandals have involved professions where two separate entities already exist.)

Finally, why is Kennedy’s well rounded proposition of a hybrid professional/regulatory model unacceptable when the evidence for it is stronger than that to the contrary?

Where is the evidence that practice-based commissioning is any better than the old GP fund-holding system, or the overall value of 100 hour pharmacies? Despite a lack of evidence, the DoH and its advisers still push through policy unopposed contrary to logic and common sense. It seems evidence is only required when it suits procrastination.

I am all for the vigorous logical pursuit of an evidence base, but how far should it be pursued before it becomes obsessively impractical? I can see the DoH’s political reasoning for dragging up the ubiquitous red herring of “lack of evidence” as an excuse not to have to fund more services, to delay the onset of enhanced or advanced services and to shift the blame of inaction on pharmacists so that we can argue among ourselves.

However, what angers me more is why those chosen to engage in discussions with the DoH are not holding the DoH more to account or defending our corner more competently, just like the GP representatives would be doing. Whatever the reason, as far as I am concerned, they are not doing what is expected of them, are not acting in the interests of the pharmacy and are kowtowing to the DoH too easily.

Sadly it is the profession as a whole that will suffer if it all goes wrong.

Sid Dajani
Member, English Pharmacy Board
Royal Pharmaceutical Society

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