Celebrating 10 years of Pharmacy Technician registration
On July 1st 2021 APTUK celebrated the 10 year anniversary of pharmacy technician registration in England, Scotland and Wales. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, and to easily enable national participation, the event was held on Zoom, with participation from a number of speakers who shared their perspectives on the profession.
The evening started with a display of photographs to represent the life of a pharmacy technician (PT). A wide range of images were submitted from various pharmacy sectors, across the UK, which set the scene for the celebration event.
You can view the photographs as a pdf here.
After an introduction from Liz Fidler, President of APTUK, Chief Pharmaceutical Officers (CPhO) from England Scotland and Northern Ireland presented their reflections and future predictions for PTs via video presentations.
You can watch the videos from Dr Keith Ridge CBE, NHS England and Improvement, Professor Alison Strath, Interim Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, The Scottish Government and Cathy Harrison CPhO from the Department of Health in Northern Ireland here.
The next people to speak were APTUKs national professional leads who shared their views from across the UK on how roles have developed and what the future might bring for each country.
Claire Steele, APTUK Professional Lead Scotland, has lived and worked in Scotland for the majority of her pharmacy career, gaining her experience from 6 different Health boards. She explained how professional registration has increased the profile of PT in Scotland. In 2017, the National Pharmacy Technician Group Scotland or NPTGS was formed at the request of the Directors of Pharmacy to enable professional leadership and the development of professional practice for PTs in Scotland. The group has members from most Boards specialising in different sectors of practice with an over-arching remit to enable professional leadership and the development of professional practice for PTs in Scotland.
NPTGS has developed a programme of work to promote the role of the PT and improve networking and sharing of best practice. The group has been successful in ensuring PT representation at key regional and national pharmacy groups. NPTGS also provides support to the Scottish Pharmacy Technician Clinical Leadership Fellow. The fellow programme was introduced for pharmacy in Scotland in 2018 and included a PT from the outset.
Claire believes that whilst registration has afforded PTs a number of benefits, there is still a significant amount of work to do, to ensure PTs are afforded the opportunity to further develop and be recognised alongside our pharmacist colleagues as equal pharmacy professionals.
Claire will continue to work closely with both APTUK and the NPTGS. She closed her talk by saying that APTUK is putting the UK back in our professional leadership body and how Claire and her colleagues in NPTGS are energized at what the next 10 years will bring for our profession as we work together on an ambitious programme of change.
Claire introduced Geraint Young, APTUK Professional Lead for Wales. Geraint reflected on joining the register in 2011 following his return to the profession and what it meant to him to be a pharmacy technician, to have the skills, knowledge and ability to adapt and deal with situations as an integral part of the pharmacy team.
He then went on to talk about the exciting future of pharmacy in Wales, with the vision for pharmacy in Wales being delivered through Pharmacy: Delivering a Heather Wales delivery board, an all-new APTUK Wales branch and the appointment of a new APTUK Professional Lead for Wales.
Warren Francis, Professional Lead for Northern Ireland spoke about what PT registration means to him, as a PT working in Northern Ireland in a world where registration currently doesn’t exist. He explained how by initially attending an APTUK conference, then working more closely with APTUK he has come across so many PTs, all doing jobs that are simply not an option for PT working in NI. What was also frustrating for Warren was that he could also see that the work PT are carrying out in NI was of equal quality to the work being carried out by the rest of the UK. It’s just that there are the restrictions that the lack of registration has created.
Warren reminded us of how good registration has been for the PT profession and the importance registration has played in the overall growth of pharmacy in general as not only has it widened to potential for PTs, but also roles of pharmacists. Warren ended his section by saying thank you to all PTs for doing such a great job over the last 10 years as this has helped strengthen the case that registration really needs to happen in NI allowing PT to be seen as our own unique workforce with the same opportunities. Warren believes that NI has the advantage of learning from the rest of the UK about what worked and what didn’t work on the journey to introduce registration. He was pleased to say that work has begun for NI on this journey and although it will be a mammoth task, it is definitely worth doing.
Next we celebrated the varied roles of pharmacy technicians and heard from representatives across the profession.
You can watch the video here of:
- Matt Rostron a pre-registration trainee pharmacy technician apprentice (yr2) in the hospital sector at the Royal Preston
- Michelle Watson MAPharmT, pharmacy technician at an independent community pharmacy in York and a clinical trial coordinator at the university of York
- Victoria Horton MAPharmT, General practice PT and regional facilitator for the Pre-registration trainee PT integrated programme
- Philip Jones MAPharmT, Senior PT and Teaching Lead
- Kaylee Harwood shared her experience of being a PT working in the dispensary of a mental health hospital.
- Nancy Anagor shared her perspective of training as a PT and working in community pharmacy.
The event was the perfect opportunity to reflect on registration over the last 10 years what it has enabled and how it lays the foundations for the next 10.
APTUK is committed to ensure the profession is represented and that it provides products that are meaningful for its members. We look forward to leading the vision for what pharmacy technicians can do to support patients and the communities we serve.
If you have any comments about this event or want to share your experience as a pharmacy technician, please contact us.
Vicky Hope operations@aptuk.org
Operations Lead | APTUK