Hospital Pharmacist
Vol 12 No 4 p125-126
April 2005

125 NHS pharmacy staff numbers continue to rise significantly Numbers of qualified staff employed within pharmacy in the NHS in England have increased 7 per cent in the year to September 2004, according to the results of the latest workforce survey, published by the Department of Health in March more

125 Neurology framework is published The National Service Framework (NSF) for Long-term Conditions was published in March. It focuses on neurological conditions, setting out 11 quality requirements for the NHS and social services to provide within 10 years more

126 Children’s medicine network announced A new network to develop better medicines for children is to be set up as part of the Department of Health’s paediatric strategy more

126 Obtaining consent could compromise paediatric database Having a requirement to obtain signed consent for the collection of patient-identifiable information to be entered onto the national paediatric intensive care audit network database would significantly reduce the amount of information stored on the database, and could therefore compromise it more

125 NEWS IN BRIEF

The impact of the clinical trials directive one year on is the subject of a symposium organised by the Hospital Pharmacists Group and the Industrial Pharmacists Groups of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the Joint Pharmaceutical Analysis Group and the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences of Great Britain, to take place on 19 May at the Society’s headquarters in London. Further information is available from www.jpag.org

Candidates are sought to fill three vacancies (two for England, and one for Scotland) on the committee of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Hospital Pharmacists Group. Nominations are to be made by 15 April.
Royal Pharmaceutical Society Official notice

Prescription charges in England and Scotland rose 10p per item to £6.50 on 1 April. In Wales, they reduced by £1 to £4 per item.

Amended job profiles for pharmacy technicians have now been cleared for release and are expected to be published shortly. The entry point for pharmacy technicians is now band 4 (and not band 3). There are minor technical amendments to the band 4, 5 6 and 7 profiles, although the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK does not expect re-evaluation to be necessary for those who have already been matched.

Having lead pharmacists as part of the management structure in cancer networks is good practice, according to the National Audit Office’s progress report on the NHS Cancer Plan published last month. However many lead pharmacist positions remain unfilled. The report is available as a PDF file (600K).