{"id":5237,"date":"2015-08-12T16:39:41","date_gmt":"2015-08-12T15:39:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=5237"},"modified":"2015-08-12T16:39:41","modified_gmt":"2015-08-12T15:39:41","slug":"stop-the-lower-standards-conveyer-belt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=5237","title":{"rendered":"Stop the lower standards \u00e2\u20ac\u0098conveyer belt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A pharmacy crisis about maintaining professional standards is looming, as cash-hungry universities accept a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098conveyer belt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 of students, many of whom fail at the final hurdle.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists (GHP), which is part of Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s health sector and represents 4,000 pharmacists UK wide, is concerned that more than one in four current pharmacy students will fail the registration exam at the first of three attempts after completing their degree, leaving them facing thousands of pounds of student debt after five years of study.<\/p>\n

 
\nSimilar to a doctor and dentist, a graduate pharmacist must complete a pre-registration year in practice before they are allowed by a regulator to enter the pharmaceutical register.<\/p>\n

 
\nPart of this process is an examination of their skills to apply theoretical knowledge into practice to ensure they are fit and safe to practice independently. They have three attempts to achieve this goal.<\/p>\n

 
\nSince the year 2000, the numbers of UK pharmacy students going to university has more than trebled from 4,000 to over 12,000-a-year, with the increase in the number of approved pharmacy schools soaring from 12 to 27 – and still rising.<\/p>\n

 
\nThere are 45,000 pharmacists currently working in the NHS and in community pharmacies, with 2,500 coming on stream each year. However, there are fears<\/a> that there will not be enough jobs for newly-qualified pharmacists.<\/p>\n

 
\nControl call<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\nThere have been calls from the GHP, employers, regulators, professional bodies, and students themselves, following a consultation on the need for control on entry standards and numbers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c this was rejected last year by the coalition government.<\/p>\n

 
\nHowever, today (August 11) Unite and the GHP repeated the call for a national debate about what it called \u00e2\u20ac\u0098the conveyer belt of students\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 going to university, the financial imperatives driving universities\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 entry policy, and the need to maintain the highest professional standards for the next generation of NHS pharmacists.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe GHP obtained the information to back its case by Freedom of Information (FoI) requests<\/a> on the standards of average and median entry A-levels and uptake via the university clearing system, as well as pass rates at the entrance examination.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe figures show that some universities have entrance exam pass rates of as low as 72 per cent and uptake via clearing rates as high as 52 per cent.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis increase has been driven by the commercial interests of some universities often with a focus on quantity achieved through a reduction in the student quality,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said GHP president Vilma Gilis.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unacceptable<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis has now led to a situation that over a quarter of students can no longer meet the basic requirements of a professional entry examination,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she added. \u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis situation is unacceptable for both the graduates and their future employers \u00e2\u20ac\u201c hence the call for a national debate.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nThe GHP\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s call to maintain education standards in the profession follows a report<\/a> last month by the pharmacy education regulator, the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), which found that the University of Central Lancashire had cut its entry standards in order to recruit more students.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe GPhC found that the university was \u00e2\u20ac\u015bunder pressure from senior management to increase student numbers\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 and as a result had \u00e2\u20ac\u015breduced the required standard of entry qualifications during the clearing process\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAt a time when the public recognises the vital health role of pharmacists in delivering safe patient care and their increased move into GP practices and A&E departments, it is essential that we maintain and ideally increase standards for practitioners,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Gilis argued.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bConsequently, it is a matter of concern that we have such apparent variable standards on entry of young people being accepted by schools of pharmacy.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nFormer GHP president David Miller co-ordinated the Freedom of Information enquiry and highlighted that this was the first time that data in the public domain shows a \u00e2\u20ac\u015bclear association over each of the last five years between entry criteria, the number taken through clearing and the final entry exam success.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bMost of the universities were forthcoming with the data, but perhaps the most revealing aspect is that two universities declined to provide information stating it would be detrimental to their commercial interests to disclose their marketing position,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Miller explained.<\/p>\n

 
\nAverage pass rates at the pre-registration year stage have dipped dramatically from 90 per cent in 2009 to 2011, to 79 per cent in the last three years, between 2012 and 2015.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe all fully accept and welcome the need for public safety means only pharmacists who meet the basic standards should be allowed to practice, but this is a waste of taxpayers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 money,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Miller noted.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI feel for the individual students who seek a caring vocational career given false expectations of professional employment by certain course providers,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he added.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThey have invested five years of their lives and are now burdened with a large student debt that they may never be able to pay.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A pharmacy crisis about maintaining professional standards is looming, as cash-hungry universities accept a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098conveyer belt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 of students, many of whom fail at the final hurdle.   The Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists (GHP), which is part of Unite\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s health sector and represents 4,000 pharmacists UK wide, is concerned that more than one in four current […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[368],"wps_subtitle":"Concerns over unis lowering pharmacy student standards ","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5237"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5237\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5239,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5237\/revisions\/5239"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}