The Pharmacists Defence Association (PDA) has published a blog from their Chair, supporting our legal action. Pharmacists  face some of the same problems that we do, with new groups of workers being used to ‘beef up’ the workforce.

His blog continues:-

“Healthcare skill mix models can work well, increasing capacity and improving the service. A good example would be in dentistry where dentists and dental technicians work hand in glove within a framework of clearly defined complimentary roles resulting in a superior service to patients.

However, in recent years, as the healthcare workforce has been put under increased pressure, a worrying trend has emerged where the structure of a clearly defined role has been replaced with a blurred thought process. When skill mix is replaced with role substitution, patient interest is evidently no longer being prioritised and issues around patient safety emerge. …….

[There is]  a strong policy move by WHO to encourage support staff in locations where there were no healthcare staff and therefore no alternatives in cases of emergency. Clearly, their training would not be of the standard of a fully qualified healthcare professional, but nonetheless, they still had a useful role to play. 

However, it would appear that some advanced healthcare system countries (like the UK) have also been developing a heavy reliance on less well-trained groups of staff, not because of a better than nothing approach, but principally because it reduces costs and potentially the size of queues of those waiting to be treated.

You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to work out that the price paid for such an approach is a diminution of patient safety.

….  In pharmacy we have some very similar concerns about the performance of the regulator, the government, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK. When attempts to raise sensible discussions about role definition, skill mix, defining scope of practice and the link to patient safety are made by the PDA, they are sometimes labelled as unhelpful and even toxic. Just like with the GMC, no one appears keen to establish the scope of practice for pharmacy technicians and the blurring of the roles and responsibilities is getting worse….

The PDA has already made clear that we believe that those pharmacists supporting the uncontrolled blurring of the lines between the roles of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians do nothing more than collude in the demise of their own profession and they damage the protections enjoyed by members of the public. The legal challenge against the GMC which is being crowdfunded is therefore very worthy of our support.”

The Chairman of the PDA has made a personal financial contribution to our legal case and has urged members to make their own contributions too. We are immensely grateful to him and the PDA for their support.