According to chapter eight, Pharmacists should only be expected to relinquish existing roles and technicians expected to take on these roles where an overarching workforce plan including suitable training and career framework are in place for both groups and opportunities exist for them to take on new roles in a planned and integrated fashion.
According to the PDA’s Chairman Mark Koziol: “A structured career framework, linked to a skills and salary escalator for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, should be developed in the community pharmacy setting to help to bring about the kind of skill mix transformation and results that have been seen in hospital pharmacy practice.”
A structured career framework relying upon practitioner, advanced practitioner, specialised practitioner and established specialised practitioner roles must be planned at the same time for both community pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. This would ensure that the frameworks dovetail and produce proper operational compatibility and crossover.
Mark continued: “Any structured career framework in community pharmacy should be based upon a transparent qualification, suitable experience and a validation framework, alongside regulatory support through an appropriate GPhC register annotation process.”
Contained within the eight chapters of the PDA’s Pharmacy Technicians Report are a large number of recommendations which outline how skill mix in community pharmacy should be approached and the reasons why.