Remote supervision divided debate among attendees at a fringe session on supervision at the RPS Conference in London this week.Chaired by vice-chair of the RPS England Board Sid Dajani, the debate centred on the eight principles for supervision released by the RPS last month (LINK).These includes a declaration that all patients should have their medicines supply overseen by a pharmacist.Independent pharmacist Graham Philips responded to the eight principles and said: “I am not willing to remove the pharmacist from the scene. As a clinician I am not willing to do that.“You can’t say you can be out of the pharmacy for two hours as you don’t know what’s going to happen in those two hours.”  The debate comes ahead of an expected government bid to review existing supervision laws next year. Changes could see pharmacists able to run pharmacies without being physically on site.The remote supervision concept has been heavily criticised from the industry but attendees from Wales and Scotland argued that arguments against remote supervision missed the point as many patients in remote parts of the UK did not have any access to pharmacy services.Director of pharmacy for NHS Highland John Cromarty said: “Remote access is a problem, the area I cover has an area of 12,500 square miles. Many patients have no access to community pharmacy.”Attendees at the debate also questioned how the RPS will ensure pharmacists are engaged in the government consultation on supervision rules next year, citing low response rates to consultations in the past.Mr Cromarty added: “How are you going to engage pharmacists in the debate this time?”Many members highlighted the variation in processes that exists between pharmacies in the UK as an aspect of the profession that needs to be preserved under the future regulations.NPA director of pharmacy Nanette Kerr said: “It needs to allow flexibility so people who want to move the profession forward can. But it can’t be so flexible it will blow the profession apart.”Mr Dajani told C+D that he is aware of how much emotive the subject of supervision is.He said: “We decided to throw this out there at the conference. The consultation is next year and we want more time to do this. When the Government comes to ask us what we want, we need to make sure we are ready.”

The eight principles

Patient focused

• Patients and the public have a right to access medicines (including POMs, Ps and GSLs), quality assured medicines information and pharmaceutical services.
• Patient safety and wellbeing is paramount and this needs to be ensured via quality systems and processes.
• Patients should have their medicines supply overseen by a pharmacist and they should have a right to counselling about their medicines.
• Patients have a right to expect that a pharmacist will perform a professional check on every prescription dispensed.

Profession focused

• The need and respect for the pharmacy profession must be protected.
• Any changes to supervision should not lead to an increase in risk and any changes in workload must be at an acceptable level for the profession.
• A pharmacist can only be responsible for one pharmacy at any one time.
• Supervision models may differ in different settings but there must be adequate staffing levels to deliver the services required.