The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7497 p447
12 April 2008

Society summary

Society would like an e-mail address for every member

The Society would like to be able to contact all its members instantly by e-mail, David Pruce, director of practice and quality improvement, told the Council at the April Council meeting.

Using the Society’s recent e-mail to members about changes to the provision of children’s cough and cold medicines (see PJ, 5 April 2008, p419), he said the Society had e-mail addresses for about 26,000 members but “we would like to be able to communicate rapidly with pharmacists and pharmacies so that when a story breaks we can instantly tell people”.

The PRESIDENT agreed that it was important to get the massage across to the profession that IT is important, that it is not a fad that is going to disappear and that IT literacy is important.

“From what I know of community pharmacists there are some who do not even have basic IT literacy skills — and soon there will be in IT-based NHS,” he said. He thought that the Society should be taking action to ensure that all pharmacists are IT literate in order to make Britain the safest place in the world to receive medicines.

“It is very important for us to be seen as an authoritative body that is supporting members,” he added.