By PM editor, Richard Thomas.

Some pharmacists may have been labouring under the misapprehension that the main task of the Government’s rebalancing board was to decriminalise dispensing errors (where the progress made so far has been precisely diddly-squat). So these pharmacists may therefore have been surprised by Mike Hewitson and Ben Merriman’s open letter to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, signed by nearly 500 colleagues.

The two pharmacists wrote to the Society calling on RPS presidency candidates to come out against plans they say are being considered by the rebalancing board to legally allow technicians to supervise pharmacies. The letter pulled no punches, saying it would be a “betrayal” if the RPS did not robustly oppose such a move.

It is important to say that the rebalancing board, under Ken Jarrold, has yet to make any pronouncements on supervision, decriminalisation or indeed anything of real significance. There has been disappointingly little to show for its deliberations over the past four years.

However, it is also important to state unequivocally that technician-supervised pharmacies would be a one-way ticket to oblivion and, just as importantly, be disastrous for patient care.

For people to be denied access to the knowledge, skills and experience of a pharmacist because of some misguided thinking regarding a fundamental foundation stone of community pharmacy would be the gravest of betrayals of the public interest.