Opinion: Why are we going backwards as a profession?

Just a few months back we had an extraordinary communiqué from the chief executive of the General Pharmaceutical Council and the chief pharmacist for England, which essentially said, “we know times are tough: try your best”.

At some stage we risk reaching a point where standards are diluted so much that it will be difficult to even call us a profession. Some pharmacists think we are already there. I don’t – but it will take a concerted effort from all parts to turn the situation around.

As an example, I read with incredulity recently about a superintendent pharmacist up in front of the GPhC for directing branches to work without a responsible pharmacist present. The company concerned received nothing more than a slap on the wrist. I don’t know the exact details of the case but how can you keep pharmacists on the register who appear to deliberately break the law?

Why do we need training courses?

For the first time in ages I’ve started a member of staff on the NVQ3 in Pharmacy Services. I can’t really remember how I was talked into it because I detest the workload that comes with this particular course. Anyway, it got me thinking: do we even need training courses these days? You could train someone on basic dispensing in a few days and they could pick up experience over time. 

Most pharmacy staff will now be on or just above the legal minimum wage, so is it even fair to ask them to undertake a lot of additional training when there are people on the checkouts at supermarkets who are valued more highly than they are for handling potentially risky medicines. Is it fair for the GPhC to apply the same standards as they did a decade ago when the sector has been in reverse the whole time?

I recognise it may seem radical or even sacrilegious to ask whether we need training courses – and, of course, I do have my tongue slightly in my cheek when I say it – but think about it. We’ve got SOPs coming out of the proverbial that are supposed to tell anyone how to fulfil a specific task. We are not necessarily asking people to take professional decisions; we are asking them to follow a step-by-step process. 

In my head you either have really prescriptive SOPs, in which case you don’t need a high level of training, or you accept that SOPs have probably metastasised into something they were probably never meant to be. 

In response to my colleague’s training questions, I found myself downloading a national support body’s ‘essential’ SOP pack, which had something like 40 SOPs in it. That’s ridiculous. When you add on the other SOPs that are mandated by other pieces of legislation or terms of service, and you could easily be talking about over 100 SOPs. 

It is no wonder that lots of people in pharmacy can no longer make decisions, let alone arrive at complex professional judgements in the interests of patients. I don’t think SOPs are worth the paper they are written on any more. No locum I have encountered has ever read ours, let alone followed them. We need to stop treating people like idiots and accept that the paint-by-numbers approach to pharmacy is no longer fit for purpose, if it ever was.

We will soon see legislative changes that will empower pharmacy technicians to take on more professional responsibilities. While my head tells me pharmacists should be resisting some of these changes, we are so busy I’ll take any help I can get. We have a truly fantastic pharmacy technician who runs clinics and is much better than many pharmacists I’ve seen and worked with. 

But then a colleague was telling me about their local GPhC inspector, who is a pharmacy technician, and how they felt uncomfortable about this. I see their point, but I’m not sure anyone at GPhC would ever be able to utter the unmentionable: that the two qualifications are not equal. 

We need a new approach to professional regulation and I’m not sure the GPhC, as it is currently structured, is up to the task.

*^{Alexander Humphries is the pen name of a practising community pharmacist. The views in this article are not necessartily those of Pharmacy Magazine.}

What do you think about the expansion of the role of pharmacy technicians?  Email pm@1530.com