The letter the PJ refuses to publish.

[Cherrypicker999]

Is the view absurd or realistic? You decide.

The editor stated:

"We have read it carefully. It contains several false assumptions (eg, that members are paying for staff pensions, that the Society has not asked members what they want) and absurd statements (eg, that the new professional body does not need to attract the best possible staff) so we have decided not to publish it on this occasion."


------------LETTER------------------
Dear Sir

With reference to Andrew Gledhill's letter (PJ 28 March 2009, Pg 338), I believe his £100 fee for membership of the GPhC is too high. Teachers pay just £33 a year and nurses £76 (which is probably a fair comparison in relation to skills). One could argue for a zero fee on the basis if the government wants to protect the public, let them pay.

These should be the baseline figures to use and not the current fees that were imposed over the past few years to pay for pension deficits, which must be even higher now.

Members must not be expected to pay for final salary pensions or generous contributory pensions or benefits to staff. The new organisations must be run like Ryan Air. To reduce costs, high salaried employees must be made redundant with the minimum statutory payments made.

I believe few pharmacists will be prepared to join a professional body where staff receive over generous salaries and benefits paid by members. Employees of the new body should earn no more than the average pharmacist salary. There is no need to attract the best and one should not aim to do so. Functionality is more important. We don’t want a ivory tower full of “fat cats”.

As for Andrew Gledhill's figures, I would be surprised if people are willing to voluntarily pay any more than £100 a year to join a new professional body, and even at this rate, I doubt, even 10,000 would join, giving an annual income of £1 million, more than enough for a frugal organisation, but woefully inadequate for an ivory tower.

What is shocking is that the RPSGB has not even asked members if they intend to join the new professional body and if so, what the maximum they would be willing to pay. They have incorrectly assumed members will automatically join. Where is the business plan? What if just 5000 people wish to join?

One must bear in mind since the PJ insist they are self funding, one can only assume that their advertising rates are based upon circulation, in which case they will be forced to provide the PJ free to all members of the GPhC and not just the professional body, unless it becomes a solely online publication. I question the need to join a new professional body.

--------END --------------------


It is obvious that members do not pay pensions directly to ex-employees, but their fees are used to make contributions to a pension provider!

Has the RPSGB ever asked what the maximum fee members would pay?
Have they asked if members intend to join the new professional body?

Should members money be paid to a contributory pension scheme.
Should staff work just 35 hours a week etc etc.


If you agree with letter, submit a similar letter to the "comic":
letters@pharmj.org.uk

[DavidS]

well, you are confusing what the GPhC might do with what the RPSGB has done. There are some good reasons for doing that, but none of them are going to help you get the letter published.

I think £100 could be about right, as there are fewer pharmacists than nurses or teachers, and they don't have as much responsibility as we do. I don't think we'll have ttoo much say over the staffing of the GPhC but, as I say, £100 doesn't sound too bad.

The real questions are about the NPB, surely. There your points are well-made, but what can be done about the RPSGB? If it were to disband all the staff would get generous pay-offs, I'm sure, and its not a good time to sell a large office building. I just wonder whether the culture has really changes sufficiently for me to give it a chance, or not. They made a bad start with me by asking for a charter: I thought that we woud do better without, but they would lose status you see, and that seems too important to them, in spite of he DOH interference and politicing that goes with it.

Enough rambling.

To get a letter published it has to be clearly focused on one issue, or you have to be an MP or past president.

[Cherrypicker999]

The issue is the comments from the editor... "absurd" and he claims members have been asked questions. They have never been asked if we want to join and how much we are willing to pay. The editor is wrong. I suspect he thinks he will lose his job soon!

Why should anyone get generous redundancy payments and not the statuatory minimum?

Look at what Opticians pay.. around £250 and there are less than them than pharmacists.
What do you currently pay? Around £400? Optics students also need higher A level grades than pharmacy students - hence normally a more intellligent intake!

Why pay staff so much? Why have 35 hour weeks, why have subsidised canteens? Are members a cash cow?

I don't want employees a professionall body employee to get 5-6 weeks holiday when the legal minimum is 4 weeks. I don't want a subsidised canteed. I don't want them to get sick pay at full pay (do locums get that?) I don't want to pay contributions to pay for their pensions.

Employ people who can do the job at the lowest salary. Don't pay premium salaries. Run the body like Ryan Air. Else, we may well end up with another Ivory Tower with fat cats.

I don't see a need to pay even £10 to a professional body, unless I get benefits equal to what I pay. I'm not joining. I cannot trust people who were in charge of the RPSGB when they have done nothing for members except increase fees.

[ramroum]

Optics students also need higher A level grades than pharmacy students - hence normally a more intellligent intake!

I don't think optics syudents need higher A level than pharmacy students, and I don't think that they are a more intelligent intake !!!
Our university course is even longer than their course.

Our fee is almost as much as doctors fee despite that they earn more than we do.

[Cherrypicker999]

I don't think optics syudents need higher A level than pharmacy students, and I don't think that they are a more intelligent intake !!!
Our university course is even longer than their course.

Our fee is almost as much as doctors fee despite that they earn more than we do.

I think you better check your facts. Optics grades are much higher than pharmacy.
often 2A and a B. This implies the average Optican is more intelliegent.
What do you need to get in to a "thick old" polytechnic? Bs and Cs?

Ex-polys were for "thick" people. Pharmacy should never have been approved at polys.
It should have been University only.

Now the thick people can say they went to University and have degraded degrees.
These people are so thick they think the 8th letter of the alphabet is pronounced as "haitch". An intelligent 4 year old knows it's "aitch". We don't say "fef", "lel", "mem".

But, it is surprising how many "thick " teachers say "haitch" and teach children to say it.
It's wrong. Look in any dictionary. They must have gone to a poly.

Course duration is irrelevant. Be honest, in the old days pharmacy took 3 years - to count tablets. Now it' 4 years to stick labels on boxes. Shouldn't it be a 1 year course?
What do you learn that you actually use?

1st Year as Doston (sorry Aston) was A level standard.
2nd Year was 2 exams - Less than A level standard statistics and Law.
3rd year was cancer, cancer and cancer.

Why does one need that to stick labels on boxes?

Same a optics - 1 year is enough. By 1 year I mean 46 weeks terms not lazy 30 week terms.

A 3 year degree is hardly 84 weeks. Take out the rubbish - 1 year is enough.

[Sir_Dispensalot]

i understand and share many of your views, cherry. I can really see your point when it comes to the new professional body (NPB). They certainly won't be attracting myself as a new registrant based on past performance. However if my employer offered to pay the fee for me, i would be tempted as it would give me essentially free resource access which i currently enjoy under the existing arrangement with my employer.

I think the main reason that the PJ refused to print your letter is the basic confusion between the NPB and the GPharmC that seems to be evident in your letter.
Remember, the GPharmC will be the regulation arm, not directly controlled or influenced by the NPB. They may well set whatever fee they like, and pharmacists will have to pay it or not be able to practice (much like the fees hike we already went through recently under the current RPSGB). If they want to pay their staff huge bonuses, silly pensions etc we can moan to the government about it but unfortunately will still have to pay up or not practice.

The GPharmC we have to join to practice, no choice. The NPB (who will control the journal, cppe etc) will be optional.

Based on the resentment / generalised apathy toward the NPB i doubt that membership will be huge in the short term (unless chains get involved and subsidise pharmacist fees), and i would imagine that the PDA union will see a hugely increased membership base. If pitched at the right services angle the PDA could even become a body to rival or overtake the NPB.


someone give me a column! look out xrayser

[Sir_Dispensalot]

I think you better check your facts. Optics grades are much higher than pharmacy.
often 2A and a B. This implies the average Optican is more intelliegent.
What do you need to get in to a "thick old" polytechnic? Bs and Cs?

Ex-polys were for "thick" people. Pharmacy should never have been approved at polys.
It should have been University only.

Now the thick people can say they went to University and have degraded degrees.
These people are so thick they think the 8th letter of the alphabet is pronounced as "haitch". An intelligent 4 year old knows it's "aitch". We don't say "fef", "lel", "mem".

But, it is surprising how many "thick " teachers say "haitch" and teach children to say it.
It's wrong. Look in any dictionary. They must have gone to a poly.

Course duration is irrelevant. Be honest, in the old days pharmacy took 3 years - to count tablets. Now it' 4 years to stick labels on boxes. Shouldn't it be a 1 year course?
What do you learn that you actually use?

1st Year as Doston (sorry Aston) was A level standard.
2nd Year was 2 exams - Less than A level standard statistics and Law.
3rd year was cancer, cancer and cancer.

Why does one need that to stick labels on boxes?

Same a optics - 1 year is enough. By 1 year I mean 46 weeks terms not lazy 30 week terms.

A 3 year degree is hardly 84 weeks. Take out the rubbish - 1 year is enough.

i do take offence at this post, however. All the 'ex-polys' have strict requirements to meet in order to produce a degree course worthy of the standards set out by the society (in future the GPharmC).


I went to Bath. An ex-tech college. Is my degree worth less than the pharmacist who went to LSP at the same time? Worth less than the pharmacist who went to bradford at the same time?
Of course not. We all had to pass the same registration exam, the great leveller.

At the time i took my degree, i needed BBB at a-level to get into Bath, and BCC to do it in bradford. I only needed CCD to do optics at bradford. Obviously the goalposts move over time - i last saw that bath now want AAB.

However i could no more carry out an eye exam on a patient with retinopathy than an optician could tell a patient about the interactions between warfarin and cranberry juice.

The reason that so much time is spent on courses teaching 'irrelevent' material is because pharmacy is such a wide ranging discipline. One which allows for transfer between wildly different areas of practice with relative ease in comparison. How many other trades or professions allow such huge opportunities to work in vastly different areas? Very few.

Think before you post.

I must admit though, the above post does have the whiff of 'trolling' about it.

Just searching old posts, cherry, i realise that you have stated you no longer practice pharmacy. Do you still work in IT, or have you returned to practice since then? I mean this as no slur on yourself, quite the opposite - sometimes i wish i had retrained in IT - but do you think that your experiences as a locum (i won't go into detail but if you were my locum i think i'd have blown my top with you!) coloured your experiences in a negative sort of way? I must admit at the start of my career i thought and acted much as you have stated on earlier threads - over time however my confidence/arrogance was lost. These days I hope that I come across as a much more well rounded (and not just in the belly dept!) person to other professionals and my patients.

[Fleegle]

Ex-polys were for "thick" people. Pharmacy should never have been approved at polys.
It should have been University only.

Now the thick people can say they went to University and have degraded degrees.
These people are so thick they think the 8th letter of the alphabet is pronounced as "haitch". An intelligent 4 year old knows it's "aitch". We don't say "fef", "lel", "mem".

But, it is surprising how many "thick " teachers say "haitch" and teach children to say it.
It's wrong. Look in any dictionary. They must have gone to a poly.

Whilst I am trying desperately to empathise with your outpourings here Cherrypicker, I must still file your ramblings in my 'complete prick' folder.

Sorry about that..just my personal opinion

Fleegle.

[Cherrypicker999]

Whilst I am trying desperately to empathise with your outpourings here Cherrypicker, I must still file your ramblings in my 'complete prick' folder.

Sorry about that..just my personal opinion

Fleegle.

I suppose that is because you also say "haitch", or am I wrong?

Only "pricks" say "haitch". that is stupid "pricks", who cannot speak English.

[Cherrypicker999]

"I think the main reason that the PJ refused to print your letter is the basic confusion between the NPB and the GPharmC that seems to be evident in your letter. "

No, it's because G Smith thinks:
"It contains several false assumptions (eg, that members are paying for staff pensions, that the Society has not asked members what they want) and absurd statements (eg, that the new professional body does not need to attract the best possible staff)"

Really? Don't member fees go to pension companies to pay for pensions?
Were we asked if are going to join or how much we would pay?
Do we need competent staff or the best - which cost more?