The Pharmacists' Defence Association (PDA) is asking members whether pharmacy technicians should be able to supply medicines without a prescription under patient group directions (PGDs).

PDA chairman Mark Koziol said its survey, which was launched last week and will run throughout this week, was designed to provide "solid data" to the government programme board set up in January to review whether medicines legislation and pharmacy regulation keeps patients safe and allows for innovation.  

As part of its "rebalancing" programme, which includes the decriminalisation of dispensing errors, the board has promised to look at restrictions on pharmacy technicians making full use of their skills.

PDA chairman Mark Koziol said the union was conducting a survey to provide "solid data" on whether pharmacists support a proposal to allow technicians to administer medicines under PGDs	More on patient group directions Making the most of PGDs 'Unnecessary and inappropriate' PGDs should be       stopped, urges Nice Pharmacists slam NPA decision to drop antibiotics       from PGD MORE NEWS
	The Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists used its response to a Nice consultation in April to call for pharmacy technicians to be added to the list of health professionals that could operate under a PGD and the PDA wanted to see how many community pharmacists agreed with this view, Mr Koziol told C+D.

"Such a proposal was made despite the fact that the significant majority of registered pharmacy technicians are currently registered only by dint of qualifying under a grandfather clause (ie not through any formal examinations but because of length of the service)," the PDA wrote on its website.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) told C+D it would discuss adding technicians to the PGD list with other stakeholders and that ensuring pharmacists had support from pharmacy technicians with the right skills was essential to patient safety.

"For this reason, the RPS will be considering this and other issues relating to the scope of practice of technicians in work we are doing later in the year with the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK, PDA and other stakeholders," said RPS spokesperson Neal Patel.

Day Lewis area manager Rebecca Myers said pharmacy technicians were able to work within protocols and would be "more than capable" of supplying medicines against PGDs under the supervision of a registered pharmacist.

"I have delivered vaccines for a couple of years now. There is nothing I do in this service that a trained and competent technician could not do equally as well as me," she told C+D.

Qualified health professionals who can administer medicines under a PGD include pharmacists, nurses, midwives and ambulance paramedics. Under MHRA guidance, a senior person in each profession must ensure that only fully competent, qualified and trained professionals operate within a PGD.

Read C+D's analysis of how to make the most of PGDs.