BRM asks Society to encourage preregistration training providers to increase the opportunities for cross-sector experience for trainees
The branch representatives’ meeting unanimously carried a motion calling on the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to encourage preregistration training providers to increase opportunities for trainees to gain cross-sector experience.
Proposing the motion, James Davies (British Pharmaceutical Students Association)
said that many BPSA members had asked for advice about cross-sector experience.
But many large multiple companies were stopping preregistration trainees
from taking parts in cross-sector experience.
On the advice of the Society, some preregistration trainees in community
pharmacy had had their cross-sector experience limited to a single three-hour
presentation relating to hospital pharmacy.
Mr Davies said that he agreed with the Council’s comments that
the objective of cross-sector experience was not to provide experience
of every sector but to ensure that pharmacists were equipped with an
understanding of patient care across boundaries. But he did not believe
that true
understanding of patient care across boundaries can be achieved in a
three-hour
presentation.
A friend who was a preregistration trainee with a large multiple company
had used her initiative to organise a week with a primary care trust
and some time in hospital practice to help break down the boundaries.
Her tutor thought it was a great idea, but her area manager told her
that it was totally inappropriate because the topic was covered in the
three-hour training afternoon.
Mr Davies emphasised that the motion was not asking for compulsory cross-sector
experience, which was not financially or logistically feasible. It was
asking the Council to lobby the big multiples so that those trainees
who wanted to do it had the opportunity and were not actively discouraged.
At a time when pharmacy was changing rapidly, future pharmacists were
looking to the professional body to support them in becoming better pharmacists.
Jheena Bhakta (BPSA), seconding the motion, said that from day one pharmacists
were expected to be able to work in either main sector of pharmacy. But
if they did not have the relevant experience in both sectors, then it
was difficult to do their job as a day one pharmacist.
|
The
Pharmaceutical Journal