I spent almost 7 years studying to be a pharmacist. I passed all my university exams and achieved 70% and over on my final year dissertation.

I have been consistently at the top or middle of the class in terms of exam results (>60% marks).

On my work placements, which were split into 6 months, I passed my first one and failed my second. I had no choice over where I worked so had to make the most of wherever I was sent.

On the most crucial placement, which was the (third) repeat placement, I again passed all the competency based training. This meant that I had successfully passed the official requirement tests needed to practice as a pharmacist.

However when it came to the final assessment a declaration / signing off was not given. This meant I could not practice as a pharmacist as I then could not sit the final exam. The tutor has the final say on whether they think the student is able to practice, however this has to be a professional decision based on the training, which I passed. I did not get on fantastically with the tutor however I was never rude and did whatever jobs that were asked of me. She made big issues over little things like making sure labels were stuck on exactly straight in the same way and once showed me a female prereg and told me thats how you should work. Really? Everyone works in a different way, some are slow, some are fast, some people talk more, some people interact less etc... Not all 100meter athletes run at the same speed in the same way etc..

When I asked for the reason for not passing me in writing, she said she would not be able to and reiterated her reasons verbally. Her reasons were "Not able to communicate effectively in english" and "Needing more experience" even though english was my first language, ive lived in Uk my whole life and ive given successfull presentations to colleagues and department heads at university. Also this was my third six month placement and only 12 months are needed to be passed.

Although I was able to repeat the placement again, it meant having to repeat a whole twelve months again. Due to some agencies not willing to fund the repeat training it then made it very difficult to find another placement.

Have you ever been to a pharmacist or doctor who had poor english? I know I have. Ive worked with european pharmacists whos english was so poor they needed another member of staff to help sort of translate for them.

So my point is that firstly I have sufficient command of the english language to be able to handle issues like telling someone how many tablets to take or to ask them preset diagnoses questions. Secondly Pharmacy is not a public speaking profession, in fact a pharmacist could theoretically spend the entire working day sat in the corner of a dispensary and not speak to anyone, Ive seen in practice believe it or not. The main function of a pharmacist is to make sure patients get the right medication, treat minor ailments and provide advice. It does not require a poet or public speaker to do so.

Therefore this was simply wrong and cant have been used as a reason to not sign me off.

At the time I was under lot of stress and no one gave me any advice so I did nothing about it. It was over 5 years ago now however I dont want to feel as though I have done absolutely nothing about it. All the authoritative bodies I have contacted about this say they cant do anything about it and forward you on to someone else who does the same thing.

So if you agree with on this plese sign the petition and share on. Maybe it might help someone else in a similar situation and give them the motivation to do something about it.