Fear of failing the registration exam is hampering pharmacy students' learning during the pre-reg year, C+D Senators have warned.

Senators hit out at the current exam for putting too much emphasis on scientific knowledge and failing to test a full range of professional and practical skills, at the C+D Senate on education and training yesterday (May 16).

Day Lewis head of pharmacy Tim Rendell said newly qualified pharmacists missed vital competencies such as business skills as a result.

"We recruit 50 pre-regs a year, and we find they spend the majority of the year focusing on their exam due to the fear of failing and losing their degree" Tim Rendell, Day Lewis

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"We recruit 50 pre-regs a year, and we find they spend the majority of the year focusing on their exam due to the fear of failing and losing their degree," he explained. "The pragmatic elements of pharmacy that we'd like to see developed aren't always there because of that focus on the exam." The concerns were echoed by contractor and RPS English Pharmacy Board member Sid Dajani, who said he spent his pre-reg year worrying about the assessment rather than focusing on leadership skills and patient care.

Mr Dajani branded it "cruel" for pre-reg graduates to spend up to 10 hours a day working in a pharmacy and then have to study for the exam.

"All the registration exam does is test your knowledge," he told the Senate. "It needs a real-life situation to prove competency."

UCL School of Pharmacy research assistant James Davies also questioned whether the registration exam could be used to better effect to ease the transition from the pre-reg year into practice.

General Pharmaceutical Council head of education and registration policy Damian Day said there was "valid" criticism aimed at the exam dominating the pre-reg year. But he stressed that a national standard was needed to ensure students were fit to practise.

"I spent this morning with a group of Boots trainees, and they all said that the exam was the only national standard, and that there was a value in that, which I thought was very interesting," Mr Day reported.

The need for consistency was also highlighted by Petre Jones, GP appraiser and medical educator, but he questioned how that was assessed. "If you do a multiple-choice questionnaire, that's testing knowledge base but not the right competencies," he stressed.

"In general practice, there's a very important exam around halfway through their final year, which is a three-hour mock surgery," Mr Jones said. "I have no idea whether that's translatable to pharmacy but I imagine that is and it actually tests the right competencies."

Mr Jones said this could change the nature of pharmacy graduates, who tended to be more focused on science-based knowledge and less on communication skills compared with GPs.

The C+D Senate was held on May 16. Catch up with the Senate as it happened with C+D's live blog.

Did the pre-reg exam have a positive or negative effect on your pre-reg year? Comment below or email us at [email protected] You can also find C+D on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook