Pharmacist and technician fees are announced
Pharmacists have been informed of their new annual retention fees to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society for 2005–– practising pharmacists are to pay £260 (subject to Privvy Council approval), representing an increase of 25 per cent.
The fee for non-practising pharmacists (ie, those not engaging in pharmacy
practice and not involved in patient care or in giving advice in relation
to the science of medicines or the practice of pharmacy or health care)
is to be £46. There are no longer to be separate categories for
those who work part-time or who are retired.
Fees payable by pharmacy technicians have also been announced. The retention
fees for practising and non-practising technicians respectively are to
be £85 and £65. An additional “one-off” payment
of £30 will be required to join the register using the standard
route (ie, for those with Scottish/National Vocational Qualification
level three) or using the “grandparent” route (for those
with other approved qualifications). This additional payment will rise
to £120 if screening of the application is needed because, for
example, a technician has not worked the required number of hours and
their application needs to be assessed independently.
The fees for pharmacy technicians relate to registration only – the
Royal Pharmaceutical Society will not be acting as their professional
body. The technicians’ register will open in 2005 on a voluntary
basis, with registration becoming compulsory from 2007.
The new fees for both professions were agreed at the August meeting of
the Society’s Council, where a code of ethics for registered pharmacy
technicians was also approved. Copies of the code are available as a
centre-page pull-out in last week’s Pharmaceutical Journal (4
Sep 2004) and as a PDF file (150K).
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Hospital Pharmacist