C+D readers have backed calls to limit the number of pharmacy students, in response to an academic who claimed that restrictions would be "detrimental on a wider scale".

Eighty-five per cent of nearly 200 respondents to a C+D poll said that places at pharmacy schools should be limited, while only 15 per cent said the situation should be left to resolve itself.

As C+D reported last week (November 7), Kevin Smith, a lecturer in genetics and bioethics at Abertay University, accused Pharmacy Schools Council chair John Smart and British Pharmacy Students Association president Vikesh Kakad of "special pleading". They claimed students could be left "stranded" and "unable to complete their education" without managed supply and demand of pharmacists.

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	"Unless the profession's trade bodies manage (as they surely will) to fix salaries artificially, the economics of supply and demand would gradually drive down the remuneration of pharmacists to a more reasonable and socially beneficial level," Mr Smith wrote in a letter to the Times Higher Education magazine.

Readers hit back at the accusations on C+D's website, questioning whether Mr Smith was aware of the impact increasing student numbers could have on the profession.

"Continued increases in graduate numbers added to the free movement of EU pharmacists, increasing retirement ages and reductions in the number of PCT pharmacists has created a pretty dire situation," said a community pharmacist posting as C Farrell.

"The only beneficiaries are the multiples – which have a plethora of pharmacists to choose from – driving down salaries and [allowing] them to impose worsening terms and conditions and working practices," they added.

Community pharmacist Raymond Lee said that producing more pharmacists than was required would be "detrimental to the profession as a whole". "There has to be a sensible and logical debate on student numbers," he wrote on the C+D website. "All healthcare professions have a limited number of students – eg dental schools have around 60 to 70 students per year."

But some readers did see merit in Mr Smith's argument. "I see the points of both sides of the argument," said hospital pharmacist Gordan Adamson. "It saddens me so many young graduates have little prospect in their chosen careers."