The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7498 p456
19 April 2008

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Talking, listening and acting

Make friends with your local dentists

Talking, listening and acting

One of the candidates in this year’s Royal Pharmaceutical Society Council election writes in Letters this week: “The single most important thing to me is that members’ opinions are actively sought, listened to, and acted upon.” Alison Moore adds that if the Society “does not make better moves towards doing this immediately, we could end up with a profession which is still divided, weak, poorly represented and likely to be walked over” (see p471).

No doubt there are many pharmacists who would wholeheartedly agree with her comments — but The Journal wonders if they are entirely fair.

Over the past few months the Society has been working hard to communicate with the membership: qualitative research conducted by Opinion Leader Research has led to the development of a questionnaire to determine what pharmacists might expect a professional body to provide. Since the beginning of this month, thousands of pharmacists will have been invited to participate in this quantitative research — due to finish in the next week or so.

The Society also established the independent Clarke Inquiry to find out what organisations want from a professional body — and welcomed the opinions of individual pharmacists in its consultation. Also under way are the elections to the Council and national pharmacy boards — the primary way for members to ensure they are represented by like-minded individuals.

Over a quarter of the profession commented publicly during the consultation over this year’s retention fees, so pharmacists are far from apathetic.

So fill in that OLR questionnaire and vote in the elections! These are tangible opportunities for pharmacists to take action and it will be one small step towards helping unite the profession, strengthening it and making sure its interests are not swept aside. Communication is a two-way process.

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Make friends with your local dentists

Community pharmacists are usually urged to develop good relationships with GPs but they should not overlook the importance of developing relationships with other health professionals.

This week, the need to have effective communication with dentists is emphasised implicitly in an Article outlining why the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has changed its guidance on the prophylactic use of antibiotics to protect against infective endocarditis (p476 and p481).

Until this guidance was published last month, one of the common clinical uses was for dental procedures in patients perceived to be at risk. NICE no longer recommends this so pharmacists will need to ensure that they and local dentists are all on board.

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