NEWS SCOTTISH PHARMACIES NOW ‘ON A CLOUD’!
Clanwilliam Health has announce that RxWeb, its web-based PMR offering, has expanded into the Scottish pharmacy market.
RxWeb is the UK’s only web-based PMR system and has enjoyed significant growth in recent years among independent pharmacies as well as multi-site and large group users. Its entry into Scotland further promotes its position as the fastest growing PMR in the UK.
RxWeb is a cloud-based PMR system, which allows pharmacists anytime/ anywhere access to their systems, as well as automatic updates and real- time back-ups. They can also enjoy enhanced levels of security due to no locally stored data or dependency on any one PC, meaning incidents of hardware failure or theft do not impact system operations or risk of patient data loss. RxWeb users have the freedom to supply their own hardware (provided it meets specifications) resulting in no multi- license fees.
‘This is a very special day for RxWeb and Clanwilliam Health as we receive accreditation to move into the Scottish market,’ said Eileen Byrne, Managing Director of Clanwilliam Health. ‘We have worked closely with pharmacies in Scotland to ensure RxWeb is tailored specifically to market needs. We are, and have been, committed to investing in RxWeb so that we deliver a superior product offering for our customers, which has allowed us to grow significantly in the UK over recent years and we are excited to continue this growth in Scotland.’
‘We’re very happy to finally be in a position to present RxWeb to the Scottish pharmacy market,’ added David Ross, Business Development Manager for Scotland. ‘Advancements in cloud technology have resulted in enormous contributions to pharmacy management in the UK, with RxWeb users gaining real value through significant financial savings and enhanced flexibility. This is both an exciting development for RxWeb and Scottish pharmacies.’
CPS JOIN UNIVERSITIES IN CONCERNS ABOUT FIVE-YEAR DEGREE Community Pharmacy Scotland has
joined both of Scotland’s Schools of Pharmacy in voicing its concerns about the Scottish Government’s plans for creating five-year integrated pharmacy degrees.
CPS’s director of operations, Matt Barclay, said that the concerns included ‘how to achieve the government’s ambition of increasing the amount of ‘experiential learning’, which are at present offered to students as ‘goodwill’ by Scottish pharmacies – without increasing overall funding for the pharmacy degree programme.
Mr Barclay also pointed to the government’s ‘ambitious timescales’ for implementing the degree by 2020, ‘given the number of unknowns the [government’s] report contains’.
Prior to Matt Barclay’s comments, Robert Gordon University and the University of Strathclyde had already issued a joint statement, in which they had stated that the two Schools of Pharmacy in Scotland were ‘committed to producing the highest quality graduates for the profession
20 - SCOTTISH PHARMACIST
Welcome to Scotland! Pictured (l-r): David Graham, Head of Pharmacy Sales for RxWeb; David Ross, Scotland Business Development Manager for RxWeb and Eileen Byrne, Clanwilliam Health Managing Director
and have an exemplary record in this regard’.
‘Whilst we support the ambition to enhance the education of our undergraduates,’ the joint statement said, ‘we are unable at this point to commit fully to any form of integrated five-year programme, as indicated in the announcement by the Chief Pharmacist, until a number of substantive issues are resolved.
‘We welcome further dialogue with the Chief Pharmacist and her team to address these issues. We remain committed to working with the Scottish government to ensure a sustainable future for our graduates.’
The plan to move to a five-year integrated degree was announced by Scotland’s Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, Professor Rose Marie Parr at the NHS National Education for Scotland (NES) conference in May. The new courses are expected to start in 2020, with coterminus graduation and registration, with the first students graduating and registering in summer 2025.
PDA CRITICISES GPHC REVALIDATION PROPOSALS
The Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) has said it believes the framework recently proposed by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) does not constitute revalidation for various reasons, including an insufficiently rigorous process and the lack of formal appraisal by a senior pharmacist. Instead, the PDA believes that the proposed framework should instead be referred to as CPD.
The GPhC consulted between 24 April 2017 and 17 July 2017 on proposals to change the existing Continuing Professional Development (CPD) requirements for pharmacists, and proposed that the current requirement for nine CPD records to be completed each year will be reduced to four simplified CPD records (two of which must cover planned learning activities), plus a reflective account and a peer discussion.
Amongst other things, the PDA said that the proposed revalidation framework and processes should be renamed ‘continuing professional
development’ (CPD), as the framework and process ‘do not constitute revalidation or an assessment of fitness to practise’. Nor, said the PDA, ‘do they meet the definitions of revalidation given by the Council for Healthcare Regulatory Excellence, the Professional Standards Authority or the Department of Health and are different in principle to the legal definition in the Medical Act 1983 (though the Act itself does not apply to pharmacists).’
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