Over to you...

Pharmacy services in England are progressing; we are seeing more pharmacists delivering services such as diabetes and chlamydia tests and stop-smoking support services. There is a strong body of pharmacists emerging with independent prescribing qualifications, not to mention pharmacists with special interests. But progress has been slow because of poor funding, a lack of open communication between pharmacists and GPs, and a lack of awareness among commissioners of what pharmacy can achieve.

As a society we would like to work in partnership with the Department of Health, professional bodies such as the British Medical Association, the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Nurses, and other pharmacy bodies to deliver multi-disciplinary healthcare that ensures the best outcomes for patients. This is not about war, it’s about collaboration.

Hemant Patel, president, Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain

An untimely resurrection

AS a retired head teacher who lived through three decades of cross-curricular experimentation, which was eventually abandoned in favour of a subject-based approach, I am amazed to see fresh attempts to revive the practice (A facelift for teaching, June 26).

I remember trying to implement the integrated day, to please educational advisers, and ending up with a mishmash of nothing in particular.

Integration takes place inside the head through insights into the connections between subjects, rather than outside it. I never cease to be thrilled by the interrelationships I now see between, for example, music, mathematics and architecture which, without having been taught the separate disciplines, I might never have realised. I’m sure we can trust children to make their own cross-curricular links, but only if they are given a thorough grounding in a subject-based curriculum.

Alan Millard, Lee-on-the-Solent, Hampshire

Managers in a muddle

IT IS not just the NHS that suffers from incapacitated middle managers (Piggy-in-the-middle managers, June 26). Public sector managers across the board have a far worse experience than their private sector counterparts.

For our most recent study, we talked to more than 1,000 managers in the private and public sectors about their role and how they communicate: only 17 per cent of public sector managers look forward to work; less than a third feel properly involved in their organisation’s plans; and only 20 per cent feel their successes are celebrated. They face a barrage of information that only 15 per cent have the time to read. All corresponding figures in the private sector are higher.

So it is no surprise that the sector faces serious staff challenges. How can managers inspire and engage their teams while disengaged themselves?

Colette Hill chief executive, CHA

No lessons from Bristol

DR JULIAN CAMPBELL refers to the protection from legal inquiry in other countries of documents relating to the reporting of untoward incidents and near misses during medical care (Over to you, July 3).

The absence of such protection in this country, he argues, is a major contributor to the nonreporting – and consequent failure to learn from – such incidents here. I agree. I proposed this solution during the Bristol Inquiry, but it was advised that it would breach human rights law. For this reason my colleagues and I adopted an even more radical solution – the abolition of the civil action for clinical negligence. Our recommendation was not accepted by the Government of the day.

Professor Sir Ian Kennedy, chairman, Healthcare Commission