Pharmacy backs call for disadvantaged students to enter healthcare
People Pharmacy academics have welcomed the government's call for more students from poorer backgrounds to pursue a career in healthcare, but argued that pharmacy schools already attract students from deprived areas.
Pharmacy academics have backed the government's call for more students from poorer backgrounds to pursue a career in healthcare, but argued that pharmacy schools already attract students from deprived areas.
Pharmacy lecturer Matthew Boyd and British Pharmaceutical Students' Association (BPSA) president Vikesh Kakad agreed that widening student participation on pharmacy courses would benefit the profession, while lecturers Joseph Bush and Claire Anderson said their courses already included students from a range of backgrounds.
Local education boards and universities need to forge links with schools and encourage a range of students to consider a career in health, the government said in its mandate to Health Education England (HEE) last week (May 28).
"We – and in fact all schools of pharmacy – need to ensure we continue competing to attract the best students from disadvantaged backgrounds" Joseph Bush, Aston University |
More on pharmacy education Video: Highlights from the C+D Senate on education Plans to include prescribing in pharmacy degree shelved, Senators reveal |
The government said there had been "significant progress" in increasing the public health workforce in recent years, but there had been less success in encouraging people from poorer socio-economic backgrounds to pursue a career in healthcare. The mandate called on HEE to work with the Department of Health on recommendations for widening participation on health courses, for implementation in 2015. |
Aston School of Pharmacy lecturer Joseph Bush agreed that widening participation was "entirely necessary" for pharmacy. Forty-one per cent of students at Aston were drawn from areas of high socio-economic deprivation, he said.
"Regardless of the fact that we do well in terms of widening participation, we – and in fact all schools of pharmacy – need to ensure we continue competing to attract the best students from disadvantaged backgrounds," he told C+D.
Training pharmacists from different backgrounds meant they would be able to "understand and fit in" with the populations they served, said University of Nottingham lecturer in pharmacy practice Matthew Boyd.
The BPSA said the fact that pharmacy was hardly mentioned in the mandate meant the profession had to look at widening participation itself.
"We would like to see HEE work with education institutes and organisations like the Pharmacy Schools Council, the RPS and the BPSA to develop ways of approaching a wide range of students and encouraging them to consider a career in health," said BPSA president Vikesh Kakad.
University of Nottingham professor of social pharmacy Claire Anderson welcomed the government's focus on students from deprived areas, but said her university already did this.
"The students come in with lower A levels but they do just as well in the end," she told C+D.
Under the mandate, HEE will be given a £5 billion budget to meet a range of NHS targets. It will also work with the Higher Education Funding Council of England to determine the correct number and distribution of undergraduate pharmacy places in universities across the country.
Do you think pharmacy suffers from a lack of students from deprived backgrounds? Comment below or email us at [email protected] You can also find C+D on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook |