Essay: The current and future roles of pharmacy technicians

The current and future roles of pharmacy technicians
Throughout this essay, I will discuss the current and future roles of pharmacy technicians (PT) while also talking about the education and training that is needed to be a qualified pharmacy technician.This will bring to light any problems that pharmacy technicians have had along the way and what problems they will have in the future due to their development of their role. Initially, they were meant to be sales clerks [1] but that later changed for them; nowadays under the supervision of the managing pharmacist they can dispense and assemble medicines for patients.[2] From this increase of responsibility, pharmacy technicians have to now register with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)  (from 1st July 2011 [3]) before they can come into contact with patients. This gives the patient security and peace of mind, that the person giving them their prescription is the most qualified and most competent person for the job.
The current roles of a pharmacy technician are to relieve the pharmacist of certain responsibilities, allowing the pharmacist more ‘face time’ with patients. Some of these responsibilities include taking in prescriptions, the general sale of over-the-counter medications (OTC), referring problems or queries to the pharmacist, ordering/receiving/unboxing deliveries and much more [4].
These important roles that the pharmacy technicians provide are key for increased patient care and management of medication because not only that it increase the education of the pharmacy technician but it allows them to educate patients on what a pharmacy can actually provide in terms of service and advice. This overall contributes to patient care because they know what their pharmacy can provide because of the pharmacy technician educating them.
Without a pharmacy technician, the pharmacist themselves would have very little time for patients this would include how they should take their medication. Which is very important for patient care because it is the responsibility of the pharmacist to provide clear and easily understood instruction to the patient. This could mean the difference between an effective treatment versus an ineffective treatment which wouldn’t be in the patient’s best interest, overall decreasing patient care. By giving a pharmacy technician more responsibility they can take care of the more time-consuming task, freeing up time for the pharmacist. This in itself is a massive benefit to having a pharmacist technician as they can handle responsibilities mentioned above the under the supervision of a responsible pharmacist.  Even if the pharmacist has to supervise it still allows them to do a lot more with their time without having to worry about impacting patient care and effectiveness of the practice.
After adequate training, the pharmacy technician can provide an extended role in the pharmacy practice. This means that they can become a larger role in the pharmacy practice; this can include making medications when ready-made medications are not available. [4]
However  this is met with slight backlash as opposing groups such as the likes of ‘Pharmacists in Pharmacy’ argues that a “pharmacy without a pharmacist is ‘just a shop’[5]” which is understandable considering that with training a pharmacy technician can do most of the key jobs that a pharmacist would be doing. The Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK (APTUK) have responded by accepting that each case has to be individually risk assessed before handing over responsibility to the pharmacy technician and going even further by stating “Pharmacy technicians must recognise the limits of their competence and refer to a pharmacist when necessary.[5]” This still keeps the pharmacist a figurehead in the pharmacy because they have that further information and knowledge that the pharmacy technician wouldn’t have.
For someone to become a pharmacy technician they must undergo a competency-based as well a knowledge-based qualification [6] that has been approved by the GPhC before they’re able to work under a pharmacist in an active setting. Then after their qualifications, the trainee must undergo a two-year training course where the trainee must have no less than 14 hours under direct supervision with a pharmacist [6] in a community or a hospital pharmacy during their work based experiential learning. While during this stage the responsible pharmacist within the practice is directly responsible for the action of the trainee, this includes developing their professionalism.
After achieving qualifications for both competency and for knowledge within the pharmacy they have to undergo a pre-reg (pre-registration) year which they are recommended by the GPhC that the employer of the pharmacy technician place them within an environment that they can learn from under the supervision of a pharmacist or a trained pharmacy technician. From this position, they must act as a ‘mentor’, a source of information, advice and general inquirer for the trainee especially when the trainee is in much need of help with a problem. This helps with the personal development of the trainee and allows for an environment in which the trainee can go ask for help if they have a problem.
Registration is fairly new for pharmacy technicians being that in 2011 [3] the GPhC made it compulsory that pharmacy technicians have to register with the GPhC. This is a massive step for pharmacy technicians because much like pharmacist who are held to high standards by the GPhC to provide the best patient care they can; pharmacy technicians also must provide the highest quality of patient care they can, this means that there is any drop in service ensuring the high standards appointed by the GPhC. This makes them equal to pharmacists as they both now have to abide by the same standard appointed by the same governing body. This means that in the eyes of the GPhC they are equal (pharmacist and pharmacy technicians) however it does recognize the limits of a pharmacy technician and what they can provide advising them to seek a pharmacist when stuck or faced with a problem they don’t know how to tackle.
The future for pharmacy technicians looks quite difficult, as there is an increased demand for patients.Due to the stress on the NHS, pharmacy technicians are finding ways to carry more responsibility within the pharmacy environment. This is how the future is going to be with pharmacy technicians. For example, the NHS is launching a leadership scheme within selected community pharmacies [7] throughout the country. What this leadership scheme hopes to achieve is to have ‘pharmaceutical professionals’ have increased development within “professional, management and leadership roles in technicians”[7]. But the pharmacy regulator, the GPhC has come forward with a new standard for both professionalism and pharmaceutical knowledge that means that there is more that is expected from pharmacy technicians. This means that the pharmacy technician has to have the knowledge and accuracy to now check prescriptions, only for whether or not that the medication is for the right person. This means that the more important clinical checking is still reliant on the pharmacist.
Even with this increase of responsibility and increase of patients pharmacy technicians are still not allowed to fill in for the responsible pharmacist when they leave the pharmacy according to Jeremy Hunt. He has gone on to state that “the government has not brought forward any proposal to allow pharmacy technicians to supervise pharmacies.” [8] This is built upon by the Pharmacists in Pharmacy campaign group that states that handing over authority to pharmacy technicians would be “ de-professionalises and depersonalises” [8]the pharmaceutical profession by limiting the support that the profession offers. Overall their message is that by having pharmacy technicians accept more responsibilities there wouldn’t be any place for the pharmacist as most of the ‘less-important jobs’ are being done by the pharmacy technician whereas most of the clinical aspects of pharmacy is left to the pharmacist, this decreases their workload and with further additional training pharmacy technicians can even make up up medications that are not already-made [4], again reducing the workload even more.
To make sure that pharmacy technicians are ready for these new responsibilities, the new standard for registration from the GPhC reflects this in the education/training of a pharmacy technician. What would have seemed to be additional training would be embedded into the course itself, “core safety concepts”, “clinical and corporate governance”  [9] which the GPhC once saw as further training as a core role of a pharmacy technician.