A rundown of some of the arguments advanced for dropping the pre-reg exam.

In no particular order.

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1. In employment law, you’re a pharmacist if you’ve worked as one.

A: In employment law, if you’ve had certain arrangements for a period of time, you can acquire the status of 'employee' or 'worker'. It doesn’t change your profession, and has nothing to do with regulation.

2. There’s a global pandemic.

A: This is unrelated to the need for an exam. Other professions are not campaigning for their exams to be scrapped. They have sat them and understand why they’re needed.

3. Provregs will have practised for months, so surely it would be safe.

A: Absence of evidence of risk is not evidence of absence of risk. You’d have also been practising to be a pharmacist for 12 months as a prereg, but still some 25% fail the exam.

4. Provregs will have practised for months so surely they’d be competent.

A: In that case the exam shouldn’t be a problem, and if they completed it, it would give the public the assurance that it deserves.

5. It’s been really challenging during Covid.

A: Everyone understands that, and they sympathise and empathise. But it’s not about you, it’s about patients and the public. The public.

6. The exam is just parroting the BNF, so it’s not required.

A: The content of the exam is a separate discussion. But if it was really just parroting the BNF, it shouldn’t be a problem as all you have to do is demonstrate that you can use the reference source.

7. Pharmacists are saying “we had to do an exam, so should you.”

A: Have any really said that, or is that what you think they think? If they have, they’re missing the point. It’s about the public, not what they had to do.

8. Pharmacists won’t treat us the same if we don’t sit the exam.

A: See the last sentence in no. 7. A.

9. There are pharmacists on the register who didn’t sit an exam.

9. A: Practice evolves. Before 1868, people didn't need to be pharmacists or have a degree to sell dangerous drugs.
So by extension of your logic - if it was once okay then it must be now - we could do away with the degree and the profession too.

10. I’m busy, I don’t have time to sit it.

A: Working life do be like that, but it’s not about you. It’s about the public. The public. The people you’re joining a profession to care for and protect.

11. They shouldn’t have put us on the register in the first place if they were going to insist on an exam!

11. A: ... necessary or not, it was always provisional, a balance of risks in a global pandemic. You accepted this, along with other conditions, when you voluntarily applied to join the register, and have been paid for your role.

12. There haven’t been any FtP issues to date, so what’s the problem?

A: Evidence of this? FtP cases can take two years to progress. Also, it's not about immediate FtP issues being apparent, but risk.

13. Employers would support this too! They’d sign off the provregs!

A: I’m sure they would, they’d have a vested interest in it.

14. Provregs have done a stellar job during the pandemic.

A: Notwithstanding their commendable efforts during the pandemic, this is unrelated to the need for an exam.

15. I’ve worked in hospital, I’m confident I’ll pass.

A: Think beyond yourself. The discussion is about the entire cohort.

16. I’ve had pharmacists telling me I’m right. In fact, they’ve even liked and retweeted what I said!

A: Welcome to pharmacy Twitter, where some people’s self-interest, self-promotion and narcissism know no bounds!