The much discussed and anticipated compulsory Continuing Pharmacy Education (CPE) will become reality from September 1, 2006.

Having prepared our pharmacists in Singapore for the past many months, the Singapore Pharmacy Board will make this requirement mandatory for all pharmacists who want to remain in the Pharmacy Register in order to practise pharmacy in Singapore. Only less than 10 countries in the world have introduced the compulsory CPE for pharmacists; and Singapore is probably the first country in Asia to do so.

Why CPE?
The primary reason for the compulsory CE is to ensure that pharmacists continue to learn and update themselves after gaining their licence to practise. We must keep abreast with the latest developments and equip ourselves with the latest knowledge and skills in our respective field of work in order to remain competent; this in turn will ensure that the public is continually being served by competent pharmacists.

What?
The compulsory CPE will require all pharmacists wanting to renew their licence to accumulate at least 50 CPE points for the 2-year qualifying period starting September 1, 2006 to August 31 2008. A practice certificate (PC) will then be issued. The new PC from 2009 will be good for 2 years with the next renewal due in 2011. Obviously the renewal fee will be doubled accordingly.
Recognizing the diversity of the pharmacists’ broad working condition and  requirements, there will be 2 categories of PC, ie. one for pharmacists  who deal with patients directly, and the other for those working in non-patient care sectors like the industry and marketing fields.

PSS will be one of the accredited CPE providers and our Professional Education Committee has lined up a series of events which will help members obtain the necessary points to renew the PC by end of 2008. We have also invested on a computer system which will capture and compile the CPE points of our members so that they can log on a check their accumulated CPE points over a specific time period.

Since our members working in the non-patient care sectors comprise a very diverse and heterogeneous group of professionals, we would certainly need a lot of input and suggestion from members working in different areas of practice. This will ensure that PSS continues to to provide relevant and quality CPE programmes through seminars, workshops, congress and other events in the future. Kindly forward your input and suggestion to Ms. See Yen Theng ( This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ) or Dr. Lou Huei-Xin ( This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it ), or simply drop our Secretariat a line.

Ng Cheng Tiang
President, PSS

Comments (0)

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

Add Comment