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Due to the publication by RPS of their submission to the UK Commission on Pharmacy Professional Leadership, APTUK has had no choice but to publish the below statement in response to the social media activity, requests from media and messages from our members.
The Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK (APTUK) is the professional leadership body for Pharmacy Technicians across all four nations of the United Kingdom. Our vision is to lead and support a recognised and valued Pharmacy Technician profession.
For the avoidance of doubt, APTUK did not contribute, nor were we consulted on the content of this submission. Our vision for the future of pharmacy professional leadership.pdf (rpharms.com).
APTUK is engaged with and are fully supportive of the UK Commission on Pharmacy Professional Leadership, and do not wish to pre-empt or undermine the outputs from this work. This statement is reflective of our submission to the Commission.
Pharmacy Technicians are registered healthcare professionals in their own right; responsible for their own autonomous practice. It would not be conducive for harmonious professional relationships for one profession to assume responsibility for another; indeed this is not the model adopted by any other healthcare profession.
The RPS states that in order to achieve enhanced roles for Pharmacists in the future, there needs to be close collaboration with Pharmacy Technicians ‘who will be responsible for the provision of medicines to patients. This will include the sourcing, dispensing, distribution, and storage of medicines; managing prescription systems, and directly supporting patients to use their medicines through advice and education’. As APTUK has pointed out on many occasions, this is and has been for a long time the role of the Pharmacy Technician (and in many cases Pharmacy Support Staff under the management of a Pharmacy Technician).
It is not future facing or in the interests of patient care and the Pharmacy Technician profession to continually perpetuate the notion that this is all we can do. Indeed, this demonstrates a lack of understanding of the Pharmacy Technician profession and the significant contributions we can make to delivering safe, effective, patient centred and inclusive care.
Pharmacy Technicians must have access to and be represented as an equal pharmacy professional. The tokenistic approach to Pharmacy Technician representation to date must stop and be replaced by inclusive, proportional representation.
Pharmacy Professional Leadership needs to evolve to meet the changing needs of healthcare provision across the UK and in doing so, the Pharmacy Technician profession must be enabled to lead on matters pertaining to their profession and be fairly included and listened to in all relevant decision making forums, at all levels regardless of what any future model for Pharmacy Professional Leadership looks like.
Any proposed changes for Pharmacy Professional Leadership will be considered by APTUK and its members.
APTUK will continue to collaborate with other organisations in our work and support others to achieve their goals, but we will only do so as an equal partner.
Claire Steele
President | Association of Pharmacy Technicians
On behalf of the APTUK Executive Committee
