Pharmacists in sport - Royal Pharmaceutical Society

T H E V I E W F R O M E N G L A N D
Stimulating times ahead
Brian Curwain, Chairman English Pharmacy Board
AS I WRITE this, the Board
elections are in progress and for
the English Board at least, it is
clear that there will be a fair number of
new Board members. I was delighted to see
so much interest in this election and hope
that with a large to field to choose from,
members will at last have been stimulated
to vote in large numbers. In this piece I will
look at where we have got to and where we
might be going.
The General Pharmaceutical Council in
its shadow form continues to develop. I
know from conversations with the Chair,
and the Chief Executive designate, and
with those who have been appointed to its
Council, that it fully intends to understand
all branches of pharmacy and the different
environments within which pharmacists
practice.
As part of their induction process I was
asked to describe the work of primary care,
industrial and veterinary pharmacists. I also
heard great presentations from an eminent
hospital pharmacist and from the Pharmacy
Technicians’ Association, APTUK. I raised
with the organisers that perhaps they need,
on a future occasion, to hear about groups
such as those working in mental health,
secure environments, and the military. This
will be done.
In the autumn, I was lucky enough
to speak at the annual Defence Military
Services (DMS) Pharmacy conference at an
army base somewhere in Surrey. Apart from
the pleasure of having a soldier put into my
car to show me exactly where to park, and
that of being conducted smartly across the
parade ground to the venue, I heard about
the truly ground breaking work that military
pharmacy does, in all three services.
Logistical challenges
The 200 military pharmacy staff, are made
up of service personnel, civilians and
Territorials. Three quarters are technicians,
led by pharmacists.
Apart from the massive logistical
challenges of getting medical supplies to
very difficult places, pharmacy staff are
involved in everything from caring for
those with massive and unusual traumatic
injuries, sustained in training and combat,
to more normal primary care roles looking
after the service families in this country.
Committed to change
The armed services are rapidly learning
to appreciate pharmacy’s place in military
healthcare and, as announced rather
briefly in the PJ, Hilary Tomlinson has
been awarded the Sir Harold Whittingham
Memorial Prize by the RAF. This is
awarded annually ‘to the member of the
RAF Medical Services, uniformed or
The theme is around
reducing the barriers
to fuller collaboration
between community
pharmacists and GPs
civilian, of any rank, who has performed the
most outstanding or original contribution to
the practice of medicine in the RAF’ in the
previous year. Great stuff!
The campaign to decriminalise one-off
dispensing errors has gone well. Currently
the MHRA is writing guidance for the
Crown Prosecution Service which will say
that it is not normally in the public interest
to prosecute. In due course both Labour
and the Tories have committed to a change
in the law but this does take time and the
interim guidance to discourage further
prosecutions is an excellent step forward.
What we call the snipping campaign
(original pack dispensing) is also ongoing,
linked with the NPSA’s desire to see the
use of the bar codes on packs of medicines
in the dispensing process. This involves
several other pharmacy organisations
and GP software suppliers as well as the
Society.
In my first piece for Pharmacy
Professional I stated that when I qualified
as a pharmacist the drugs were ‘not all that
effective and …. not very dangerous’. A
colleague rang me up to point out that I was
wrong in terms of penicillin and diazepam
respectively. Thanks Clive, you are right of
course.
I have great hopes and aspirations for
the Society as the professional body for
all pharmacists. We can be much stronger
together than divided up into sectors of
practice. Also, demonising other health
professions is never helpful and rarely
reflects the reality. We all need to get out of
our silos.
By the time you read this, Society staff,
the President and myself will have had a
dinner meeting at the House of Commons
with our colleagues at the Royal College of
General Practitioners and a shadow health
minister. The theme is around reducing
the barriers to fuller collaboration between
community pharmacists and GPs as a means
of improving patient safety, quality of care
and cost-effectiveness.
This is a joint initiative but from where I
sit I am happy to report that the Society has
made most of the running to date! There are
ways in which, even in difficult times, the
NHS can facilitate such joint working and
we are working hard to persuade politicians
of all major parties about this.
Safer journey
My own experience of working with GPs
tells me that they do clearly have the
welfare of their patients at heart and are
receptive to proposals focussed on this.
Discussions need to move on from who
provides what service to seeking ways
of providing, often jointly, a better, safer
journey for our shared patients
I would like to thank all the members
of the English Board with whom I have
worked since its inception. It has been a
privilege and a pleasure to serve as member
and chairman. We have gone through the
usual processes of a new group, establishing
our role and ways of working.
Wider profession
It was quite hard at the outset with
significant and understandable tensions
within Headquarters about how things
were arranged between the Boards and
the Council. We are over that now, and
the discussions here, and with the wider
profession, about how the Society will be
structured and governed in the future, have
been exceedingly helpful.
I am most grateful also to those
pharmacists who twice voted for me to
be on the Board. I have been coming to
Lambeth for four out of my 40 years as a
pharmacist and will be both sad and happy
to move on. I will miss its excellent and
dedicated staff, who have handled the recent
changes very constructively, and my Board
and Council Colleagues. I will be happy to
spend more time with my family and as I
approach retirement age, to have more time
for me.
Finally, I wish the new English
Pharmacy Board and its Scottish and Welsh
counterparts all the very best for the future.
You are important to all of us. n
14 Pharmacy Professional | February 2010
February 2010 | Pharmacy Professional
15