Background An average of four drugs are compounded per week in our pharmacy, mostly paediatric dose capsules and children’s suppositories. The pharmacy technicians’ team is composed of 16 individuals, who are multi-skilled, serving in different positions of the hospital pharmacy.

Purpose To develop an evaluation of pharmacy technicians’ professional competencies for non-sterile compounding.

Material and methods An assessment grid and a procedure for the evaluator were created for the different stages of production: prescription validation, work surface preparation, hygiene, drug compounding preparation and verification, labelling. Two evaluators observed the preparation and each stage was graded: Mastered (M) Acquired (A), Being Acquired (BA) or Not Acquired (NA). In March 2014, pharmacy technicians were evaluated.

Results A total of 13 pharmacy technicians were evaluated, on 7 pentobarbital suppositories preparations and 6 paediatric dose capsules preparations. Each stage, on average, was rated (A) or (M). For hygiene, 70% of the pharmacy technicians disinfected the work surface before and after preparing, but by using alcohol. Ninety two percent of the pharmacy technicians checked the calibration of the weighing scale but only one (17%) checked the level of the scale, 77% used paper sheets instead of a watch glass. Also, calculation of the confidence interval for the capsules was rarely mastered (16.7%).

The overall results were satisfactory. Some issues were identified: weighing procedures, compliance with procedures and the calculation of acceptance interval for capsules. Those issues called for a procedures update and clarification process: for example, using a surface disinfectant and a better explanation of the uniformity mass test.

Conclusion This evaluation was intended to make an assessment of professional practices for non-sterile drug compounding. Ongoing training will be implemented taking into account issues identified. The evaluation must be performed regularly to assess ongoing training implementation, and will be conducted for all new pharmacy technicians.

References and/or acknowledgements No conflict of interest.