LETTER: Pharmacy work down the years

I was fascinated to read your article in the February 16 edition of the County Times with answers to your questions by Piers Barrett Berry on the changing role of community pharmacies.

By The Newsroom

Published 2nd Mar 2014, 08:00 BST

Having qualified as a community pharmacist myself in the early 1950s and obviously now retired, I would like to point out that nothing in this article was new to our practice over the years, apart from a greatly increased number of ready made products to be supplied.

When I qualified I did not need to have a degree although many people did and soon all had to.

I studied for three years at Sunderland Technical College then did one year’s apprenticeship with a retail pharmacist before getting my certificate of qualification.

The main differences were in the actual dispensing in that we actually made most of the mixtures, lotions, ointments and creams. Also the prescriptions were written in Latin and of course we had to keep studying to keep up to date as they still do.

MARGARET ROGERS

Pollards Drive, Horsham

Latin