Which? Report Slates Remote Supervision

Concerns about the proposal to allow a pharmacy to operate in the absence of a pharmacist have been raised consistently by the PDA, which has always contended that the proposals to let pharmacy staff run a pharmacy, without a pharmacist present, are being pushed through without proper debate or due regard to patient safety.

The DoH, in its thinking about remote supervision, appears to believe that as long as a substantive protocol process is in place and that the pharmacist is contactable, then it will be safe for the pharmacist to supervise while absent from the pharmacy.

The PDA believes that this is a disaster waiting to happen. The DoH’s proposals should be seeking ways to make the pharmacist even more accessible to the public; instead they are seeking to take the pharmacist out of the pharmacy. This is neither in the public’s nor the profession’s interest.

The latest Which? report into the advice provided by community pharmacies points to marked differences in quality of advice and service provided by pharmacists compared with that given by some support staff.

Clearly, pharmacists have the beneft of a four year degree education and a further year to achieve professional qualification. Consequently, perhaps unsurprisingly, the report supports the position of the PDA in that it raises concerns regarding the DoH’s proposals to allow pharmacists to
be absent from the pharmacy.

The PDA believes that however many protocols are put in place, they can never replace the presence of a pharmacist in a pharmacy, nor the pharmacist’s substantial knowledge and professional skill.

The idea that pharmacy should rely more heavily on protocols and that the pharmacist can be absent is a leap in the wrong direction. Consequently, the PDA has urged the DoH to go back to the drawing board and redesign its proposals.