Petition Tag - pharmacists

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) passed a judgement on May 19th 2009 entitled:

OWNERSHIP AND OPERATION OF PHARMACIES CAN BE RESTRICTED TO PHARMACISTS ALONE

Judgments of the Court of Justice in Case C-531/06 and in Joined Cases C-171/07 and C-172/07Commission v Italy, Apothekerkammer des Saarlandes and Others

Italian and German legislation laying down such a rule is justified by the objective of ensuring that the provision of medicinal products to the public is reliable and of good quality

ECJ Press release


On 30th June 2011 the English Pharmacy Board of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society agreed the following statement.

Minutes of the meeting of the English Pharmacy Board - Open business


In May 2009 the European Court of Justice (ECJ) found against the European Commission and in favour of Italy and Germany in cases involving the right of those States to restrict the ownership of pharmacies to pharmacists alone. The Court decided this restriction was justified in those particular circumstances because of the protection it provides to public health, more specifically by the objective of ensuring that the provision of medicinal products to the public is reliable and of good quality. The Court also said that it has not been established that another measure less than the rule excluding non-pharmacists from ownership would make it possible to ensure just as effectively the level of reliability and quality in the provision of medicinal products to the public. The law in Great Britain does not currently restrict ownership to pharmacists alone.

The English Pharmacy Board (EPB) of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) would wish to achieve the same laudable aim of protecting the public by ensuring that pharmacists in England enjoy genuine professional
independence.

The EPB wishes to work with government, other representative bodies and employers to bring forward recommendations to ensure pharmacists can practice in an atmosphere of professional freedom that allows them to provide the highest levels of public service and protection. In order to achieve this the EPB in its role as part of the RPS is currently involved in the review of the Responsible Pharmacist regulations, the fundamental review of the Medicine Act and is currently moving forward with its workplace pressure campaign through the promotion of professional
empowerment.

This petition is the personal initiative of Graeme Stafford and is not endorsed by any organisation. Anyone who signs it should also do so in a personal capacity.

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Collaborative drug therapy management (CDTM) enables patients to receive optimal care by means of a team-based approach. Physicians and pharmacists can work together to ensure patients are meeting therapeutic goals. Currently, CDTM is allowed in hospitals and long-term care settings.

Indiana is one of only 6 states that limits CDTM to hospital-based sites. HB1111 would expand CDTM to all physician clinics under a physician-directed protocol. This would allow pharmacists to further assist physicians in managing chronic disease states, which allows physicians more time to focus on other patients. This provides patients with increased accessed to care. There is a public need for HB1111.

According to the Indiana State Department of Health, 31% of Hoosiers had hypertension in 2009, 40% had high cholesterol in 2009, and the prevalence of diabetes increased by 12% from 2005 to 2009. Show your support and impact health care in Indiana!

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The CPBC has submitted to the ministry of health services a proposal that will transfer almost all responsibilities of pharmacists to regulated pharmacy technicians including verbal Rxs and final checks (product check).

The regulation of pharmacy technicians should be about better training pharmacy technicians to provide greater support to pharmacists and enhance the public safety.

Although the transfer of technical functions to pharmacy technicians are desired by many pharmacists, we are opposing the implementation of this regulation at the present time for the following reasons:

(1) Chain drugs stores will simply use this regulation process to reduce the pharmacist staffing level. Regulated pharmacy technicians will NOT free up pharmacists' time for more counseling and clinical services. Chain drug stores will replace their pharmacists with regulated pharmacy technicians and will have only one pharmacists on duty. Their only pharmacist will NOT have enough time to properly review and assess Rxs and to provide cognitive services. Profit-focused chain drug stores will NOT pay their pharmacists to provide cognitive services that generate little or no revenue. This problem is already endemic in the major chain drug stores.

(2) Also, regulated pharmacy technicians will likely to continue to try to expand their roles to take over even cognitive functions of community pharmacists. The CPBC says regulated pharmacy technicians will take over only technical aspects of pharmacists' responsibilities. It is true for now. But, the PEBC and CEs for technicians require them to study drug classes, interactions, mechanism of actions, ADRs, indications, monitoring parameters. Why are they required to study this kind of materials if they are to provide only technical functions? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize the real agenda behind this regulation process.

(3) Community pharmacists have no ability to control the direction of this regulation process once it starts. We do not have a strong advocacy group that will oversee the professional practices in chain drug stores (BCPhA is NOT a pharmacist organization. It is a trade organization). We are under-respresented within the College and will be outnumbered by regulated pharmacy technicians especially when 2 pharmacy technicians are added to the College Board. Therefore, we will not be able to stop if regulated technicians with 8 months of training start taking over cognitive responsibilities of pharmacists and thus endanger the public safety.

The extended scope of regulated pharmacy technicians will have serious consequences as follows:
will put the public health in jeopardy.
will increase liability issues for community pharmacists. Pharmacists will still be sued even if regulated technicians make an error. To the public, pharmacists are THE SUPERVISOR.
will cause major unemployment for community pharmacists.
will cause further deterioration of working condition for community pharmacists.
will slow down or halt the expansion of community pharmacists' roles because the CPBC and large pharmacy chains will have no motivation to pursue this issue once they replace pharmacists with regulated pharmacy technicians. Instead, they will continue working on the expansion of pharmacy technicians' roles to generate bigger profit and to listen to the bigger voice of technicians within the College (remember pharmacists will be minority within the College).

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Dear Pharmacists,

Recently, one of our locum pharmacists in conjunction with some dispensary staff he worked with highlighted the issue of some medicine packaging which could cause potentially dangerous medication errors in pharmacies especially busy community pharmacies.

Some of this packaging is still in circulation and I believe you must have come across some.

We at TrueQuest are soliciting your support in signing this petition electronically so that it could be sent to relevant publications to further raise awareness.

Help protect patients ! Help protect Pharmacists !

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A recent "meeting" of the RPSGB has decided to increase membership fees despite a large number of the membership being clearly against this action.

The RPSGB has seemingly mismanaged funds and, in my opinion, is asking its members to pay for these errors.

This is not fair and is not how things should be done!

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