The organisation is “in the process of going to our members and trying to gauge what they feel” about supervising POM supply, the association’s business development officer Oliver Jones told C+D exclusively last week (June 17).

C+D revealed last year that detailed proposals for pharmacy technicians to be handed legal responsibility for supervising the supply of POMs had been submitted to a Department of Health and Social Care (DH) programme board tasked with “rebalancing medicines legislation”.

The revelation ignited a backlash from many C+D readers and eventually prompted the DH board responsible for the controversial proposals to “go back to square one”.

C+D’s own survey of 58 technicians in November 2017 revealed that 60% were in favour of supervising the supply of POMs “in principle”.

Watch Mr Jones discuss the APTUK’s position statement on supervision in the video below:

Board member: We shouldn't shy away from discussions

Wales’s chief pharmaceutical officer Andrew Evans – a member of the DH board that drafted the supervision proposals – told C+D that the debate should continue.

In an interview with C+D in May, Mr Evans said the board should not “shy away” from discussions around changes to pharmacy supervision, nor from “what it can do to help pharmacists and pharmacy technicians realise their potential”.

Read C+D's interview with Mr Evans here.