Revalidation of Pharmacists and Technicians

08/07/2010

Have your say about how pharmacists and pharmacy technicians should be revalidated by completing our online survey

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain is developing proposals for revalidating pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. We are seeking, through this questionnaire, views from a wide range of people about what will work best. Revalidation will affect you, whether you are a member of the public, a pharmacy user, an employer of pharmacists or a pharmacist or pharmacy technician, so please contribute your views.

Revalidation is a process to check periodically that a registered pharmacist or pharmacy technician remains up-to-date and continues to be competent and fit to practise. All the regulated health professions are currently developing proposals to do this for their registrants.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain has initiated several pieces of work, including background research to help it develop proposals for a scheme of revalidation.

Prime Research and Development Ltd has been commissioned to appraise several different approaches to revalidation. This survey is one of several strands of work through which we are exploring the merits of different approaches to revalidation and the practicalities of implementing them. We would welcome your response and comments to the questions posed.

In October 2007, the Society established an expert advisory group to develop proposals for revalidation in pharmacy. A report was submitted to the Department of Health in February 2009 setting out 10 principles against which the success of a future revalidation process can be established: the process should be effective and cost-effective, be standards-based, be proportional, be evidence-based, be quality-assured, involve stakeholders, be equal and diverse, be remedial, be consistent across Great Britain, and be implemented incrementally.

The questionnaire has five sections. Some questions are closed and require a specific response, others invite you to comment more fully if you wish. How long the questionnaire will take to complete will depend on how much you wish to comment, but we would encourage you to respond as fully as your time permits.

Your responses will remain confidential and be available to the project team only. All responses will be collated and reported in aggregate. We may use quotes to illustrate key points but these will not be attributable to particular individuals or organisations. Subject to their consent, we would like to report organisations that have responded.

Please note, the deadline for comments is Monday 12th July 2010.

Click here to have your say: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QS9YBK3.

There is also a discussion forum at http://groups.rpharms.com/_forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=2138