From Mr J. Wilson, MRPharmS
SIR,-May I comment on some of the issues raised by Martin Palmer in his "Broad Spectrum" article (PJ, March 11, p404)? I fully endorse Mr Palmer's view that the single transferable vote system adds little or nothing to the results of the election. He quotes evidence to support this and I have not, so far, become aware of any research to indicate that a fairer or more representative result could or will ever come from the STV system. Let us scrap it and probably save quite a bit of the Society's (our) money. This should be fairly simple to achieve. After all, STV was introduced only some 20 or so years ago and it should be possible to reverse the decision. A more difficult problem is how to encourage pharmacists to vote. The fact that our voting return is similar to that of the Law Society is no cause for complacency.
I disagree with Mr Palmer that there should be sectional interests. This is potentially divisive and it may be impractical to give all sections of the profession a fair share of Council seats. We are, after all, one profession. Part of our weakness as a profession, compared with doctors, nurses and others, is that we are too divided already.
Two other changes could, however, be put in place, which might improve the level of participation in the elections and would also make the Society more democratic. The first of these is regional representation, as I originally proposed in a "Broad Spectrum" article last year (PJ, July 31, 1999). Each of the 21 elected Council members could represent a constituency of around 1,500 to 2,000 pharmacists. A constituency would in general consist of about three or four adjacent local branches. There should be a rule that a candidate must have been a member of one of the local branches forming the constituency for not less than two years.
There would be several advantages to this arrangement. Candidates would be known personally to many pharmacists in the area. As members are elected for three years, there would need to be an election in any one constituency only once every three years. Thus, only one third of the electorate would vote each year and this would save money. Having an election only every three years may, of itself, increase interest and participation.
Secondly, we should remove the ban on canvassing. Electors need to know the views of candidates on a wide range of issues and the correspondence columns of the PJ and other pharmacy journals are an important source of those views. A necessarily brief statement is not an adequate substitute. Local branches could organise their own hustings with candidates. I agree with Mr Palmer that we could set a limit on funding for campaigns, as in Parliamentary elections. This limit could be set quite low so as not to disadvantage anyone, and candidates should be required to account for their expenditure. Alternatively, the campaign funding could be made available from Society funds.
I would be interested in the comments of colleagues on the proposals outlined above. Something must be done, and soon, if the level of apathy (or perhaps deliberate non-voting which is definitely not apathy) is not to increase.
John Wilson
Arnold, Nottinghamshire