Pharmacy technician debate rumbles on

There is a place for pharmacy technicians to take on more responsibility in community pharmacy but not at the expense of patient safety or pharmacists’ clinical responsibility, said Sandra Gidley (pictured), chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) English pharmacy board, in a conference session looking at the current hot topics in community pharmacy. Referring to the papers leaked from the Rebalancing Board about supervision and the subsequent debate on the subject at the RPS conference, Ms Gidley commented: “Everyone seemed to agree that it’s entirely suitable for pharmacy technicians to be more involved [in pharmacy] but pharmacists must be there to do the final clinical check.”

The RPS position is that “where there’s a medicine there must be a pharmacist” and Ms Gidley added that “having made the case for years that pharmacists are accessible on the high street, we’d be shooting ourselves in the foot if we compromise their position.”

Ms Gidley also hinted that the way discussions on supervision were carried
out were unhelpful and stressed the importance of transparency. “The president reported back [to the RPS] as much as he could but there is a need for real openness and transparency, not decisions made behind closed doors,”
she said.

Source: www.tmmagazine.co.uk/pharmacy-show-2017-the-full-report