A preregistration trainee has to put in a lot of hard work during the training year to show to the tutor that he or she is a suitable person to be a pharmacist. But for most trainees the training year is also very enjoyable and rewarding.
Preregistration trainees find that the more they put into their year the more they get out of it. They have to take responsibility for their own learning and development, by identifying their own learning needs and discussing with their tutor how to meet them. They are required to build up a portfolio of evidence for their tutor to assess in addition to demonstrating their competence while being observed at work.
With each tutor, trainees have to sign a learning contract at the start of the training period to commit to meeting their responsibilities as a trainee. Tutors also have to sign the learning contract to commit to meeting their responsibilities as a tutor.
For the latest Preregistration Bulletin click on the link below:
Trainees are provided with a workbook from the Society containing information and activities. The activities help them prepare for the training year, learn and develop effectively and demonstrate their competence to their tutor.
The workbook for trainees is available here as PDF files. Click on the links below:
Cross Sector Experience
Although no longer mandatory, all trainees are expected to gain experience of at least two patient centred sectors of practice i.e. hospital and community. The best way to achieve this is by undertaking a Cross Sector Experience (CSE) placement. This involves spending a minimum of two weeks in the hospital or community sector (for a community or hospital preregistration trainee pharmacist respectively). Some employers have chosen to achieve the requirements of the preregistration training programme in a way that does not include a CSE placement. If this is the case your tutor must declare at your final declaration that you have met the CSE expectation in another way and state how this has been achieved.
Resource packs to support trainees working in one patient centered sector (e.g. community) visiting another patient centered sector (e.g. hospital) or vice versa is as below:
Introduction to community pharmacy 2008-09
Introduction to hospital pharmacy 2008-09
To access the learning styles questionnaire referred to in the trainee workbook, click here. (NB: the author charges a small fee, currently £10, for access to the questionnaire.)
The performance standards for trainees describe what trainees should be able to do and how they should behave in order to join the register.
Information about the performance standards is supplied here as a PDF file. Click on the links below:
Performance standards (see Trainee workbook 2008-09 Part 2, pp47-60)
Within this programme, all trainees are expected to gain experience of at least two patient-centred sectors of practice (known as cross-sector experience), ie, hospital and community practice. If you are working in community practice, then you are expected to gain some experience of hospital practice (through a cross-sector experience placement) and vice versa. A cross-sector experience placement is expected to be undertaken for a minimum duration of two weeks.
Trainees who are unable to arrange a cross-sector experience (CSE) placement may need to take alternative steps to ensure that all of the performance standards are fully met. If this applies to you, contact the Preregistration Division later in the year (after September 2006):
e-mail prereg@rpsgb.orgTo access a guidance document, Hospital training in pharmaceutical technology for preregistration graduates, send a large stamped addressed envelope with your request to:
Preregistration DivisionEach year, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's inspectors organise a series of half-day presentations for preregistration trainees. The aim is to explain the inspector's own role and that of the Society's Fitness to Practise and Legal Affairs Directorate, so that trainees can gain an understanding of the support available to pharmacists from those sources.
For details of the presentations for 2009, click on the link below:
Inspectors' talks to preregistration trainees 2009
Please note that there will be no presentations at the following locations: Aberdeen, Blackburn, Chelmsford, Edinburgh, Maidstone, Nottingham, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Reading, Thornton Heath, Swansea, Wirral.
Please note that these presentations are not organised by the Society's Preregistration Division. Any queries should be addressed to the individual inspectors, who can be contacted through the Society's Fitness to Practise and Legal Affairs Directorate.
If you need to make a fitness to practise declaration when applying to join the Register then please download the form below, then complete this and send it together with your application.