The power of unity

Only a person with a heart of stone could not fail to be moved at the plight of los 33, the Chilean miners who this morning were all saved from their underground prison and walked into the promised land of Camp Hope. Perhaps once in a generation, an event where the prayers, belief, empathy of the world unite behind a group of fellow human beings trapped in a struggle to survive against apparently impossible odds. The last time I recall such a world wide event of this nature was the Apollo 13 moonshot.

Both the miners and astronauts had a number of factors working together in their favour. The individuals were united in their determination that they would survive. They were united in their trust in those working tirelessly on their behalf, to think the unthinkable and come up with some ingenious answers, previously never considered, to move heaven and earth and bring them safely home to their loved ones. How they delivered the impossible!

Unity is an amazing concept, hence the phrase "Divide and conquer". All the miners pulled together and worked together in their own way to ensure that as a group, they were in the best circumstance to react positively when the moment of their deliverance came. The unshakable belief of both them and all the support workers and families, so long camped above the mine, that they were all working together for a common aim, that they would succeed against all odds, is inspiring to us all.

We could all learn a little bit from hope, belief and unity. Let's hope none of us is ever in a situation like the Apollo 13 crew or los 33 to have to learn for ourselves what it takes to face the unknown and walk away intact. But just in case, perhaps tomorrow, we should take a first step towards it. We shouldn't waste our chances, as one day, we might be so fortunate as them.

Publish and be damned!

We've had a number of difficulties to deal with over the past couple of months which we have kept to ourselves, but have now resolved (we hope!) and some of these along with other things we wanted to tell people have been featured in our e-newsletter for October 2010, which was sent to anyone on our mailing list last night.

If you haven't received a copy, it is because you are not on the list. A copy will be available from our website next week, but if you want to receive a copy before then, along with future e-newsletters, please get in touch and provide us with your e-mail address.

As is ever the case with these new ideas, things didn't go quite to plan. On the plus side, it only took eleven minutes to send to a few thousand people and we didn't cause any servers to crash, as far as we know.

One or two people did receive more than one e-mail, as they were in the mailing list more than once and although we did try to check to prevent this, as it was a manual check (no women took part in the checking), inevitably, it was bound to be imperfect. One lucky person did receive twenty six e-mails, all attaching the newsletter. However, as this happened to be our IT manager, it wasn't too big a deal. We analysed the problem to try to prevent future similar episodes and concluded the fault lay with the nut on the keyboard.

The point of using the newsletter is to quickly and comprehensively get across to a large audience information which would take us a long time to repeat to everyone and which may not always be relevant to each and everyone of us. In addition to communicating information via our website, which is averaging 60 000 hits a month and growing, it gives us chance to promote ideas, especially at a time when individuals in the world of pharmacy appear to be being crowded out and having their voices drowned out by big organisations.

Both we, and you, need to make our voices heard and not continue to allow events to overtake us or move us in directions which we do wish to go and more importantly, which we know to be wrong for the profession and the people whom we collectively serve. Together, we are stronger than any of us could possibly be alone. We should remember that.

Little Boy reaches 65 years old - time to give up or get up?

The idea that the retirement age is being raised from 65 years of age because we are all living longer and that retirement was something most people never saw when the retirement provision was originally constructed.

Shakespeares Seven Ages of Man shows us that little boys have time to play, where play is the work of children, whilst as we pass our prime, we would like time to play more rather than work, but it all has to be paid for somewhere along the line. The worst aspect of judging people by age is that young people often disregard their elders as short of knowledge of the "modern" world based on their experience of six score years of life. Not long ago I had blazing rows with "minor" employees of some PCTs who wanted to "get rid of the old codgers" from the world of pharmacy. Many (codgers) obliged as they were smart and realised we had moved to a scenario where their knowledge and experience would never be acknowledged, and many resigned from the register (of Pharmaceutical Chemists). They were smart enough to see that we were being led by little boys and were following, like lemmings, over the cliff edge. We didn't bother to ask them what they thought, we assumed they were past it. Now, however, we cannot make that choice and must continue to work, even if we don't want to and are not wanted when and if we reach that milestone.

After all, they had been through it all before and built what we inherited and are now bodging due to our relative lack of experience. Does history teach us it's mistakes? Of course! Do we learn them? No!

What was the main news today in all the papers and media? Not the fact that 65 years ago today, Enola Gay dropped Little Boy on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. An estimated 140,000 people were killed instantly or died from the effects of radiation in the months that followed. A further 80,000 people died after the US dropped an atomic bomb on Nagasaki three days later.
The US has since justified the bombings as an alternative to a potentially prolonged and costly land invasion, saying the devastation wrought on the cities forced Japan's surrender days later, on 15 August.
Some of the 55,000 people attending today's ceremony of remembrance made symbolic offerings of water to the victims, as many had complained of thirst as they lay dying, while schoolchildren read out messages of peace. A single bell tolled as the city's people fell silent at 8:15am, the exact time "Little Boy" detonated.

The day that changed the world forever barely warrants a mention today, 6th August 2010. Would we dare sanction the dropping of a nuclear bomb on anyone today? Since the answer is a resounding "NO!", even though we can't be bothered to ask those who were there, the witnesses of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, why should we bother to ask anyone who has been there before in terms of pharmacy in the UK?

So why would the "leadership" who have claimed us as their "membership" without it ever occurring to them that we might not actually want them to lead us anywhere, as we didn't ask for them in the first place (less than 1 in 5 voted for a change, let me remind us all). This isn't a nuclear bomb - that would be a gross insult to everyone involved in events 65 years ago today. But is a a depth charge, silent running and it will come back to haunt us all if we don't face it down. Is it time for a DIFFERENT new professional body? Some think it is and they range from little boys to over 65 years old and more. Could this be a coalition OF THE WILLING?

P.S. I can't be bothered labelling this post. Technology! Why can't id do it for me?

Smart Cards or Smart People?

The news that an estimated 200 000 patients are at risk because of inaccurate data in their Care Records has led to GP leaders calling for an immediate halt to the Governments Summary Care Record programme. What's worse, the majority of these care records have been created and uploaded without patients consent.

It appears that the gaps and innacuracies, such as wrong medication or allergies result largely from operators not having the required smart cards to gain access to the system.

Some PCT areas and some LPCs are promoting the requirement of smart cards for pharmacists as mandatory, others are not remotely interested, creating wide differences in day to day working practices accross the country. Add to this the shambolic approach to facilitating the issue of smart cards by different PCTs, it might just be that as the new government decides to save billions of pounds and scrap failing IT projects, this dislocated approach to smart card issue and use accross professions mirrors that of PCTs, may result in the whole project falling flat on ITs feet.

This is not because it doesn't work - it clearly does when set up properly and people get involved. It's that bad old bueracracy again. If only organisations like the NHS stopped running themselves to suit the organisations priorities and focussed on patients priorities, huge and expensive messes like the Summary Care Records fiasco might be avoided and nmore importantly, patients might feel the NHS is there for their benefit.

For years when we have been working with PCTs, Nightingale Pharmacy Services have always striven to get PCTs to understand that pharmacists work accross several PCT boundaries and they need to recognise that patients do too. Trying to get some of the PCT staff to understand that pharmacists can't deliver the patient care they want if the PCT doesn't understand that we work in this way and do nothing to support us and enable us to provide the services we want to.

At least with pharmacy we know where we stand - if we give poor service, the patient can always vote with their feet and go somewhere else. So people are smart and can react accordingly. Cards are not smart.

this twittering world

"Not here the darkness, in this twittering world.

Descend lower, descend only
Into the world of perpetual solitude"

Not my words, you understand, those of T. S. Eliot who was obviously onto something. If twittering ws good enough for Eliot, I suppose it's good enough for me. Don't think he would have settled for 140 characterrs, though.

The full text is from a quartet of poems, "Burnt Norton". Something to make you stop and think though I don't think it will class as CPD but......

Shooting ourselves in both feet.

So, there we have it. The first salvos that tell us we're in for our own winter of discontent. The propoganda war starts today. Not that Pharmacists will (or should) go on strike, and yes, despite a typo error on my Profile on our "new project", as I'm not 31 years old and was 18 in the year Thatcher came to power, I do remember the original "winter of discontent" and Britain being the "sick man of Europe). Happy days!

The news that GP's are likely to see their pay cut by a quarter can only be bad news for pharmacy.


http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=4126456&cid=Latest_headlines_1_010710


It's a line in the sand that multiples in particular will clutch and hold on to for grim death, noting that despite the "recession" (aka "a time when people don't buy what they don't need") one of them has posted third year double digit profits. Times must be tough!

We have been advised that one of them is cutting a pound an hour off all locum rates in mid-September, or a 4.54% pay cut BEFORE inflation and IGNORING the 6% year on year prescription volume increase they are likely to get just by organic growth, ignoring again self generated growth (if they have any). So, 6% more work for you for 4.54% LESS pay. Doesn't seem fair, does it? But we're all having to share the pain, aren't we, I hear you say. Not really, we say. Double digit growth means more than 10 %, so somewhere, someone doesn't understand percentages. It could be worse, we could do it in fractions. Ah! I hear you sigh. So what's the answer?

We've said it before and we'll say it again. Vene, Vedi, Vici.

I said we'd been around for a long time. I came, I saw, I conquered. But who thought of Divide and rule? Works every time.

We have terms and conditions, like everyone else. It doesn't matter if some pharmacists break them, does it? Book direct through us and don't tell the agency, and you'll be better off, trust me! Nudge nudge, wink wink. And you're better off! Miraculous! Whilst it lasts, then the calls dry up, then you've no work, then they say, "Tell you what, seeing it's you, we'll do you a favour". You breathe a sigh of relief, before choking at what comes next. "We've had to drop the rates though, you understand, there's a recession on" You fall silent. "Of course, if you don't want it, we've got locums and other agencies queuing up for it...". Then, finally ,despite everything we've told you, you finally realise the truth. You've been mugged. Take a couple of pounds an hour pay cut or get no work. No brainer. Not really - the no-brainer was not listening to our years of experience.

Still, no one died. True, but that's only because pharmacists in the main don't have guns. Human beings normally shoot themselves in the foot. I must have missed those sessions at Uni which taught the rest of my colleagues how to use a gun, since too many are superb when it comes to shooting ourselves in both feet.

In case anyone reading this masitakes these observations for bitterness, forget it. We've been around for over 16 years doing this, and we know how it works, so bitterness was overcome by reality many years ago. Frustration, though, that it always seems to end this way? You could be onto something there. Answer? In the name of everything that is Holy, do not give Pharmacists guns, or we've all had it!

They don't like it up@em!

..as Corporal Jones would say.

It appears that some of our Members of Parliament don't like their new expenses system. Apparently, they have to pay for their expenses up front, keep receipts, then try to claim their expenses back and it's simply not on, according to M.P.'s.

So, let's consider this for a moment. M.P.'s, who are paid by us, who raise money through taxes on us which we pay by having to submit details of income and expenses via Her Majestys Revenue and Customs, don't like the fact that they (like us) have to pay for expenses they incur in respect of their work, and have to claim the money back. At least they get it back! How much does your accountant allow through on the basis that "the Revenue don't like that"?

Then there's the issue that some of have to contend with, VAT returns, tax returns, PAYE/NIC records and payments, SSP/SMP/SPP, which are usually done outside of work hours, aka Sunday.

At least our hard pressed M.P.'s have an army of people to help them -77 in total, managing the claims of 600 or so M.P.'s. We have to pay our accountants, they aren't provided to us like the M.P.S's get.

Maybe they can find time to pass less stupid laws in the next few years, as they'll be too busy to work in Paliament for having to reclaim the second home allowance! Whilst they're at it, maybe they could repeal a few laws or bring them into line with others.

Let's start here - if an M.P. makes a mistake, they should face a jail sentence, with maybe a warning only if they make a single mistake. That would bring them into line with us Pharmacists, who can be jailed for a dispensing error.

Alternatively, they could change the law to stop us being prosecuted for a mistake. Maybe we would all sleep a little better then. What has the New Professional Body got to say about this idea? Have they raised this matter with our M.P.'s?

We're waiting.........