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Pharmacists apprenticeship development has been “paused”

The PDA and GHP wrote to Skills for Health and issued a joint statement on 25th November 2019 outlining the concerns of pharmacists about the apprenticeship proposals. Skills for Health, today announced, on behalf of the employer group that is seeking to develop a pharmacist apprenticeship, that the development of their proposal is going to be "paused".

Fri 20th December 2019 The PDA

The PDA welcomes the pausing of the proposal and a commitment to improve engagement and communication with those organisations that represent the profession.  However, we are very mindful that “pausing” does not mean that this second attempt to create a pharmacist apprenticeship has been abandoned, as happened with the first proposal earlier this year.

The PDA will continue to represent the interests and opinions of pharmacists in this matter. The official statement communicated by Skills for Health says:

At their December meeting, the pharmacist apprenticeship development group decided that development on the proposal and standard should be paused whilst further engagement is undertaken with the sector to help address some of the misconceptions about degree apprenticeships and their relationship to regulated occupations.  A quote from the Chairs is below:

Having discussed with the development group, we feel that the group’s focus should be on awareness raising with the pharmacy sector in order to dispel further misconceptions about degree apprenticeships. We will be contacting those professional bodies that have taken an avid interest to invite them to further engage with us. We will also undertake some further work around communications.”

The PDA and Guild of Healthcare pharmacists joint statement and letter of 25 November 2019 can be downloaded here.

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The Pharmacists' Defence Association is an appointed representative in respect of insurance mediation activities only of
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and is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (Register No 307063)

The PDA Union is recognised by the Certification Officer as an independent trade union.

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