PDA makes a submission to ' A vision for pharmacy in the new NHS' DOH Consultation

Having surveyed PDA members and having taken on board feedback from the Vote on and Have your facilities on the PDA website, the PDA made its submission to the DOH consultation in October 2003.

"It is extremely important to make submissions to significant consultation exercises as they present an opportunity to influence the outcome. The problem with pharmacy consultations, particularly government ones is that they tend to attract substantive responses from organisations that represent the interests of the employers. Because they do not receive responses from organisations concerned solely with the interests of employee, locum and primary care pharmacists, the results can put the individual pharmacists at a disadvantage."

Said Mark Koziol, PDA Director

"We take these consultation exercises very seriously and from now on, whenever these opportunities present themselves, we will be making sure that we have the interests of the individual pharmacists well represented."

The main conclusions of the PDA submission are:

• The concept of the individual pharmacist contractor providing a range of specialist services in an area, that is not necessarily the owner of a pharmacy, needs to be explored.
• In terms of workforce availability, the locum population can provide a rich source of enthusiastic and capable pharmacists to develop new roles.
• There needs to be a more focussed effort by government to invest in and fund training for pharmacists.
• The PDA could not support any government proposal which allowed a pharmacy to operate without the presence of a pharmacist as this would produce risks which are unacceptable to patients, technicians, staff and pharmacists alike.
• Pharmacists must be given access to patient information.
• Local Healthcare committee's should actively seek the involvement of employee and self employed locum pharmacists.

Notes to Editors

• The Pharmacists' Defence Association is the Defence Association for individual employee, locum and primary care pharmacists.
• PDA can be contacted by telephone 0121 694 7000 or email enquiries@the-pda.org