The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 265 No 7127 p882-888
December 16, 2000 The Society

December Council Meeting

June Crown to lead Society's pharmacist prescribing project

Dr June Crown, who chaired the Government's review of the prescribing, supply and administration of medicines, is to be appointed to lead the next stage of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's pharmacist prescribing project. Dr Crown is also the author of the report that led to the start of nurse prescribing.
Dr Crown's appointment was approved by the Council of the Society at its December meeting, which was held in London on December 5 and 6.
The Council also agreed that a small, expert working group should be established to continue the work needed to develop pharmacist prescribing. It would develop the tactics necessary to achieve the Society's goals and give patients the benefits of pharmacist prescribing.
Commending the report of the task group, which had been set up at the Council's special meeting on October 30, Mr CURPHEY said that the Council's existing policy on pharmacist prescribing was not a detailed one. The current stated policy was that pharmacists should prescribe in a broad range of circumstances. The Council also totally supported the Crown report, which was the justification and the explanation of how pharmacists and others would prescribe. So that had become the policy.
The task group had endeavoured to consider how the Society should move on. The Department had published proposals for extending nurse prescribing. It seemed to the group that if that proposal was to be taken forward, then it would make sense for pharmacist prescribing to fit into the same pattern. It would be silly to have a separate and different view as to how the extension of prescribing rights might go.
Secondly, the Department accepted the principle that pharmacists should prescribe in certain circumstances. Therefore the Society would have official Department approval and support.
Thirdly, the task group had decided that it would make sense to look at generic competencies to prescribe. This had attracted enthusiastic support from the physicians on the group, both general medical practitioners and hospital doctors, who clearly felt that they had been lacking in competence to prescribe in their own early days. Therefore they welcomed continued involvement in taking forward generic prescribing skills, defining, and looking at what the underpinning knowledge should be and how that might be taken forward over a sustained period.
It was not about pharmacists demanding prescribing status, say, next June -it was about how the Society might proceed down a fairly long process to ensure that, when pharmacist prescribing in the public interest came about, the profession would be competent to deliver it. The Crown report had been entirely based on public interest and that was why the group had properly addressed that aspect.
Mr Curphey said that Dr Crown had already agreed to champion the cause of pharmacist prescribing on behalf of the Society and would chair the new task group. That was a sparkling achievement. She had been the author of the original Crown report on nurse prescribing and of the two reports on prescribing, supply and administration of medicines in the past two years. She was most enthusiastic to take matters forward on behalf of the Society. She liked the idea of dealing with the generic way because it would enhance prescribing skills right through the health care professions.
Therefore the first recommendation was that Dr June Crown's help should be enlisted. She had agreed in private that she would do that.
The second recommendation was that there should be a small, expert working group formed. The National Prescribing Centre's pharmaceutical advisers had already started work on generic prescribing skills, and the Society would be silly not to use what they had done. He therefore recommended they should be included in the working group.
Mrs BANKS said that her anxiety was that they were heading into all sorts of weighty policy issues that the Council should have a chance to talk about at some stage. One essential point needed to be raised immediately. She was unclear as to whether the proposal was a two-level requirement, one generic and one for specialised competency on top of that.
The Department of Health was starting to brief with a view to the drafting of legislation. The Society needed to get in at that stage. If the Council wanted to diverge in any way from the nursing model, it should be thinking about it quickly.
Mr CURPHEY replied that the reason for going for the generic skills was to develop the idea that there was a set of underpinning skills required to build on top of the knowledge base for anyone to be able to prescribe. That was the first step. At the same time there were some fairly strong signals that pharmacists in very specific circumstances might need to move somewhat faster, as might the nurses. There were areas where pharmacist prescribing might move much quicker than the fairly slow, gentle process of generic skills.
However, the Society had to regard it as several threads running at the same time. The important one was rather like the nurse one -the 10-year target, the long game which said that in the end they wanted to be able to prescribe in many circumstances. But at the same time there would be opportunities which it was hoped the expert group would give guidance on. The expert group would not have many Council members on it. It would have on it those who understood prescribing issues very strongly in order to build on the Crown review.
Professor MACKIE pointed out that the task group had not been able to meet all its terms of reference because it had had to work within a short time scale. She had originally proposed that it should have two years in which to work. In December, 1998, at a strategy day, Council members had decided that pharmacist prescribing was the number one item they wanted to work on. Two years later they had goals, they perhaps had the bones of a strategy, but they still did not have a policy document. A range of policy issues and documents would be involved. It had to be borne in mind that any prescribing role pharmacists had in the future would not be in isolation.
Professor Mackie supported the appointment of Dr Crown to head an expert working group. Dr Crown had agreed to act as the champion of pharmacist prescribing but very much within the context of looking at matters across a number of professions, multidisciplinarily.
The expert group needed a policy paper agreed by Council so that it was clear about strategy and policy. It should commence work, but the Council should be ready to change a number of outdated policies. The Council should not step back from its obligation to provide professional leadership in the area.
The task group had had only 30 days in which to produce something and because of travelling difficulties some of its meetings had not been well attended. The task group should meet again to develop a strategy and a clear policy on prescribing and then set up the expert group to take the implementation forward.
Mr CURPHEY said that the policy was clear: it was that pharmacists should be able to prescribe in a broad range of circumstances. The way they got to that was the job of the group, to help to define the tactics as to how they might work their way through to achieve the goal. At the end of the process the policy would be worked up and tactics to achieve the policy would be there. Mr Curphey said he did not know what sort of policy paper they could put to Council other than that they wished to have a policy for prescribing for pharmacists. If they wanted a set of tactics to achieve pharmacist prescribing, that would be fine. The group would do that.
Professor MACKIE replied that at the "awayday" in July Council members had agreed a planning sequence for their work. The goal had to be agreed as to what they were trying to achieve; they had to develop a strategy to help achieve that goal, and in doing that they had to take account of current policies and revise them in the light of what they were trying to achieve. Following the policy revisions or implementation, there would have to be tactics to implement the policy. Then monitoring would follow. It had been agreed that the Council's role was to monitor progress with the business plan; the role of the staff was to implement the plan and to develop the tactics to implement it. The Council would have to agree the role, the strategy and the policy.
The goal was that pharmacists should prescribe in a wide range of conditions, and policies were needed to underpin that goal or it would not be achieved. There were policy issues concerning confidentiality, access to case notes, generic therapeutic substitution, and so on, and the Council did not have policy documents on each of those.
Mrs BANKS said that a lay person could be forgiven for thinking that pharmacists wanted to duplicate a large part of the function of GPs, to diagnose and prescribe. That was not the intention. But what did "broad range of circumstances" mean? Would it be specific or not? How did it link to the development of competencies? Ultimately, there would be some major issues about remuneration. There were issues around responsibility, insurance and a whole range of lower level issues that needed to be resolved. They were not just matters of detail; they involved questions like public interest. The group should bring the difficult issues back to Council in order that consideration would be given to them.
The PRESIDENT agreed that matters would have to come back to Council.
Professor DAWSON said that the Council needed the expert group to flesh out the goal. One of the reasons matters had taken two years was that the Council had tried to deal with them without an expert group. The proposal that the expert group should incorporate non-pharmacists so that they had a broad remit was appropriate. If the programme was a two-year one, then the Council would receive work in progress in order to have review. There was no inconsistency between the views of Mr Curphey and those of Professor Mackie. The Council should get on with the work and use the expert group to advise it on how to take matters forward.
The PRESIDENT felt that the general feeling was that the expert group should flesh out what they were looking for and should return to Council with the issues that needed policy issues with work in progress. [Agreed]
Mr KIRIT PATEL felt the paper was a good one. However, the Society was distancing itself from the other pharmaceutical bodies. He recalled that a meeting had been held with the previous Secretary of State with a joint presentation from the Society, the National Pharmaceutical Association, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee and the Company Chemists Association. There had been representation from external people on the group but no representation from other pharmacy bodies. Remuneration had to be considered by the PSNC. Insurance was the job of the NPA. Everybody had an interest in implementation.
One reason why the nurses had succeeded was that they had one voice. The paper would be far richer if other bodies had been involved. Unless the profession had one voice, the nurses would get everything. Consultation with other bodies was extremely important. He urged that other bodies should be included from now on.
Professor SCHOFIELD felt that the Society's work might be strengthened and informed by a dialogue with patient representatives and appropriate organisations. While it might not be right to include them on the group, the dialogue would strengthen impact with the Government.
Mr CURPHEY said that extending prescribing to other clinical professions was about extending the ability to prescribe, not the entitlement to prescribe. Nurse prescribing, when it developed, would not be about entitlement. Nurses would not be prescribing everything everywhere tomorrow. They had to make sure they were able to prescribe first, and then somebody would have to pay for that. It was a long process; the nurses were coming to the end of their process and it was time that the Society caught up with them.
Mrs REMINGTON felt the Council had got off a flying start in October by setting up the group with such a tight time scale against the positive backcloth of the pharmacy plan. Before that there had seemed to be a certain scepticism from some people whether it would ever be an innovative agenda. Perhaps that was part of the reason for the delay and for the procrastination over the past couple of years.
But now there was a positive environment. The Government had said: "Yes, please, we want some of that. Can you please tell us how to go about it?" Therefore it was disappointing that Council members should be splitting hairs and talking semantics when they needed to get on with delivery. There had been too many delays. Some issues that had been raised in Council were matters for the expert group to bring back to the Council in due course for policy decision, much like the policy support unit model.
The PRESIDENT said that the Council approved the setting up of an expert working group chaired by Dr Crown. She felt that they should also adopt a suggestion of Professor Mackie's that the group should itself decide how it should use task forces and small groups within the budget allocated to it. [Agreed].

Review of Society's branches

Giving an update to the Council on the review of the Society's branches and regions, Dr GRAY said that a series of meetings was being planned in each region in England between January and June, 2001. The objectives were: to describe the current picture of life in the branches and regions; to identify groups of activists in different parts of Britain and, conversely, perhaps where activity was not happening; and to identify opportunities where resources, money, time and knowledge could be effectively employed.
The Public Affairs Directorate was putting together a resource pack that would be made available by the end of the year to all Council members and members of staff who would be taking part in meetings and to regional secretaries. The packs would include items such as a short presentation that could be used to introduce the session, areas for discussion, and letters of invitation which regional secretaries could send to the branch activists and other people that they might want to invite. As background material the pack would include some policy documents and some material about the NHS plan for England.
Output from the meetings would be obtained through use of a structured feedback form on which participants could give data about current activities. The review did not foresee a major restructuring of the branches and regions. It was a step along the path to see where the branches and the regions wanted to go.
To reach those who did not attend meetings, there would be a random sample of pharmacists, which would reach both attenders and non-attenders. Dr Gray had offered to collate the data statistically.
The Society's Scottish Department was engaged in its own review of branch activities. Having had 12 out of 12 attendance at its meetings of branch secretaries, Scotland had the situation under control.
In Wales, the Welsh Executive wanted to be involved with some parallel developments with the Welsh branches, and Dr Gray looked forward to discussions about a suitable resource pack and parallel exercise. The Welsh Executive, according to the Society's Byelaws, was responsible for branch administration in Wales, but limits on resources had meant that in reality branch administration had been carried out centrally.
Ms BEVERLEY PARKIN (Director of Public Affairs) said that the meetings were an opportunity to talk to the branches and regions about how they saw themselves linking into the future. They were also an opportunity to extend the roadshow idea, with Council members and staff going out to talk to members. The Society would also be taking out a "next steps" plan based on a model taken from the North Western region. There had been a useful networking strategy meeting. That would help move forward the process of building networks.

Forum on Teamworking in Primary Care

The Council adopted the recommendations in the report of the Forum on Teamworking in Primary Health Care, which had concluded that teamwork between health professionals and patients was the key to the future success of primary health care (PJ, November 4, p672). The Council agreed that the recommendations should be incorporated within the Society's programme to respond to the NHS national plan and "Pharmacy in the future", where appropriate.
The report had presented evidence to show that teamworking provided a more responsive service to patients, who benefited more when health care professionals work together. The report set out 11 recommendations to assist in establishing successful primary health care teams. The recommendations stated that a team should:

•Recognise the patient as an essential team member
•Establish a common, agreed purpose
•Agree objectives and monitor progress towards them
•Agree teamworking conditions, including a process for resolving conflict
•Ensure that team members understand each other's skills and knowledge
•Recognise the importance of communication between team members
•Ensure that the practice population understands how the team works
•Select a team leader on the basis of leadership skills rather than status, hierarchy or availability
•Promote teamwork across health and social care for patients who can benefit from it
•Use evaluation of teamworking initiatives to develop practice
•Share patient information, in accordance with legal and professional requirements

Mr HEMANT PATEL asked whether the document would go to the Society's branches. It was an excellent piece of work and could be used by various people at local level.
Mrs CHRISTINE GRAY (head, practice division) said that the document had not been sent to the branches. Some 2,000 copies had been distributed proactively to opinion formers in primary health care.
The SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR said the document would be sent to the branches.

Practice guidance for EHC as a pharmacy medicine

The Council approved a document setting out practice guidance on emergency hormonal contraception (EHC) as a pharmacy (P) medicine, in anticipation of the licensing of a levonorgestrel-containing P product. The guidance appears in full on pp890-892, with the text for an accompanying consultation card and an aide-mémoire.
The Council was reminded that at its October meeting it had received a report on best practice in the supply of EHC as a P medicine, drawn up by its expert advisory group on EHC. It had also agreed professional standards covering this area. The practice guidance had been developed to complement the standards and was based on the expert group's recommendations.
The practice guidance had been drafted by a steering group with representation from the Company Chemists Association, the National Pharmaceutical Association and the Society's Scottish Department and Welsh Executive.
Answering a question from Mr ARGOMANDKHAH, Mrs SUE SHARPE (Director of Professional Standards) said that while the bulk of the guidance was not mandatory, it did incorporate the professional standard on supply of EHC, which was mandatory. The position would be made clear to the members.
Dr GRAY felt that the supply would be onerous for members. The consultation time was perhaps longer than they were used to, and there was an issue about facilities and confidential areas. The Society should keep a watching brief. It had to be mindful of what happened in practice. Members had expressed concern, especially those who already had patient group direction services. People moving forward should not feel compromised.
Mr RANSHAW said that in Wales there would be a problem with the aide-mémoire and consultation card. It would have to be printed in Welsh also. Reference had been made in the document to an assessment tool. That would make it a technical document and therefore it would not have to be printed in Welsh. So the Society should be careful what it called it.
Mr CURPHEY replied that there had been agreement to have the document printed in Welsh.
Professor MACKIE supported the document. The guidance was excellent, and she agreed with the professional standards being mandatory. But they were in danger of overkill for a medicine moving from prescription-only to pharmacy supply. Would it not be better to work with the manufacturers in order to have one training pack available? The Society's role was in terms of practice guidance, which was all that was needed to be able to deliver the service. But if pharmacists also had a training pack provided by the company and a consultation card, there might be confusion. At a meeting of the area pharmacy committee in Grampian, the nine practitioners on the committee had felt that the guidance they had been given in draft was excellent and that other materials would be unnecessary.
Mr CURPHEY said that the Council should not take a decision that relied on manufacturers' printed material. The profession should produce its own.
Dr HAWKSWORTH supported Mr Curphey. The aide-mémoire and consultation card would promote good practice.
The Council then agreed to approve the publication of the practice guidance together with either or both of the aide-mémoire and the consultation card.

NHS pharmacy plan priority areas

The Council approved proposals for strengthening the Society's work in relation to the Government's pharmacy plan. It made its decision after considering an analysis by the policy support unit of "Pharmacy in the future: implementing the NHS plan".
The PSU analysis had determined that the Society was already addressing most of the initiative in the pharmacy plan: winter planning; more over-the-counter medicines; NHS Direct referrals to pharmacies; NHS Direct information points in pharmacies; supporting healthy lifestyles; emergency hormonal contraception; smoking cessation; electronic prescribing; e-pharmacy; concordance; pharmacist prescribing; recruitment and retention; more hospital preregistration places; leadership training; common foundation programme; continuing education; NHS support for continuing professional development, etc; workforce planning; skill mix; clinical governance; replacement of NHS tribunal; UK Council of Health Regulators; health procedures; overhaul of disciplinary procedures; periodic reregistration linked to continuing competence.
Areas in the pharmacy plan not being directly tackled by the Society were: community pharmacies in one-stop primary care centres; out-of-hours access to medicines; repeat dispensing; medicines management (other than through involvement in the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee's medicines management project); local pharmaceutical services; the revised community pharmacy contract; re-engineering hospital pharmacy services.
The Council agreed that a new cross-directorate working group would be set up to co-ordinate all work directly related to the plan. The group would also consider how to take forward the areas of the plan that were not being addressed, or not fully addressed. The chairmen of the implementation committees would be involved as a monitoring group, which could go to the officers to confirm arrangements.
The Council was reminded that at a strategy day in July it had prioritised four areas of policy work: (1) competencies of the future pharmacy workforce; (2) ensuring fitness to practise through education, training and continuing professional development; (3) the future of community pharmacy; and (4) new models of pharmacy and pharmaceutical care. On the recommendation of the PSU, the Council agreed that, in the light of the NHS national pharmacy plan, it should merge projects (1) and (2), both of which clearly related to the longer-term needs of the profession.
The PSU also recommended that the Council should carry out a scoping exercise to identify the major issues for the Society in relation to the future development of pharmacy outside hospitals. It would focus on issues for the profession emerging from national policy development and allow the Council to identify major priorities for new policy developments in pharmacy. The Council agreed that this recommendation should be looked at in association with workforce and competency issues and brought back to the Council in due course.
The Council also agreed that the Society should seek to become involved in the Department of Health's development of intermediate care, which the Department had defined as "a whole system approach to a range of multidisciplinary multi-agency services designed to promote independence by reducing avoidable hospital admissions, facilitating timely discharge from hospital, promoting effective rehabilitation, planning innovative new services in non-
hospital environment, and minimising premature dependence on long-term care." The PSU suggested that direct involvement was preferable to setting up a project or working group in isolation.
The Council also approved the publication of a résumé of its consideration of the matter during an "awayday" on December 4 and 5 (see panel).

Independent review of Community Pharmacists Group

The Council agreed that the Community Pharmacists Group should be asked to refocus its efforts to provide a more effective service to its members. The Council rejected a suggestion that the group should be disbanded, agreeing that the group should be allowed to continue, but that discussion should be held with the group committee as to how the group, within its budget, could change and refocus its activities in the light of the comments made in the Council's debate.
The Council's decision was made at the end of a long debate on the report of an independent review of the group, carried out by Sir Duncan Nichol. After conducting a number of interviews and considering written submissions, Sir Duncan had identified a general consensus that the group was not currently making a sufficiently worthwhile or effective contribution either to the development of community pharmacy practice or in the representation of views and policy ideas to the Council. There were differences of opinion as to the cause of this position, with some group members feeling that they had been marginalised by the Society and others taking the view that the group was not truly representative of community pharmacists and failed to interact dynamically with its membership base.
Sir Duncan had identified a need for community pharmacists to work more closely with primary care pharmacists in pursuit of integrated care. He recommended that renewed effort should be made to identify the common ground between community and primary care pharmacists and to sponsor integrated practice development.
Sir Duncan had also concluded that the core agenda for the Society's groups should be the greater contribution that pharmacists could should make in the five areas identified in "Building the future" -the management of prescribed medicines, the management of long-term conditions, the management of common ailment, the promotional support of healthy lifestyles, and advice and support for other health care professionals. He recommended that the highest priority should be given to promoting professional practice and developing an expanded role for community and primary care pharmacists as envisaged in "Building the future".
On the organisation and structure of the group, Sir Duncan had examined possible options, including turning the group into a Community and Primary Care Pharmacists Group or concentrating resources on supporting local pharmacy development groups. His view was that retaining the status quo for the group was not a viable option: unless it could be guaranteed a clearly defined and purposeful remit, particularly for practice development, the group had no worthwhile future.
During its debate, the Council considered Sir Duncan's options for the future of the group, plus other options put forward by Council members. It was felt that the group had not worked in the way envisaged when it had been set up. It had not attracted the involvement of many employee pharpharmacists and only a small proportion of its large membership appeared to take any interest in it. However, the group did some things well. For instance, it had an effective newsletter and had put on some excellent meetings at the British Pharmaceutical Conference. These were worthwhile activities, and the Society could capitalise on such strengths while refocusing the group's resources to meet the enormous challenges that community pharmacy would face in the coming years

Board of examiners

The Council approved a document setting out the role and remit of the boards of examiners for the Society's registration examination. The document established that the regulations governing the conduct of the registration examination were for the boards to decide. It also specified that the total membership of the boards should no fewer than 10 and no more than 12 persons, with three to five of them serving on the board for Scotland and at least one member resident in Wales serving on the board for England and Wales. The document also laid down the mechanism for identifying individuals to serve as board members and chairmen.

Registration examination syllabus

The Council approved a new syllabus for the Society's registration examination, to take effect from 2002. The syllabus had been designed to describe the areas in which candidates would have to demonstrate the knowledge and understanding appropriate to modern pharmacy practice. It would not depend on trainees working towards a particular set of performance requirements.
The Council agreed that the new syllabus would be disseminated immediately to preregistration training stakeholders and given to the Society's examination contractor in time for its production of the 2002 examination papers.

Byelaws on registration examination

The Council agreed to seek an amendment to the Byelaws so as to remove the possibility of candidates having a fourth attempt at the registration examination, as from 2002. Candidates would, however, have recourse to a resit of the third sitting in extremely unusual circumstances that allowed the third sitting to be declared null and void. The Council was reminded that, in the spring of this year, steps had been taken to implement a policy decision to remove the fourth attempt, but these had been put on hold pending a judicial review as to whether the Society had acted lawfully in setting a limit on the number of attempts at the examination. Following the successful outcome of the judicial review, the Director of Professional Standards had advised that it was now possible to go ahead with the proposed Byelaw change.

Council briefs

Professor Mackie The PRESIDENT reported that Professor Mackie had tendered her resignation from the Council as from the end of the meeting. Professor Mackie was to be thanked for her contribution to the Council and for everything she had done, which had been outstanding.
Developing pharmacy values In answer to a question from Mr HEMANT PATEL, the Council was advised that Professor Nick Barber's paper on developing pharmacy values, which had been presented to the Council at an earlier meeting, had been placed on the Society's website (www.rpsgb.org.uk/news/policyindex.html).
PJ editorship Answering a question from Mr KIRIT PATEL, the SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR said that candidates for the post of editor of The Pharmaceutical Journal would be shortlisted soon.
Byelaw amendment The Secretary and Registrar reported that the Privy Council had approved two amendments to the Society's Byelaws. One amendment had been sought so that The Pharmaceutical Journal would no longer be required to have a role in the production of the annual report of the Council. The other made provision for Council members to be reimbursed for expenditure personally incurred in having to employ a locum pharmacist while engaged on Council business.
Public health literature review The Council approved a proposal from the practice research division to commission a critical review of the literature relating to health promotion and public health in pharmacy. The work would be used to inform future work, including the preparation of practice guidance relating to health promotion and public health activity in community pharmacy, as well as identifying areas of activity that required further development.
Resource Management Committee The Council approved a proposal that the chairmen of the Society's Scottish Executive and Welsh Executive should attend meetings of the Resource Management Committee and that the secretaries of the two executives should receive Resource Management Committee papers. The Council noted that both executives were responsible for the implementation of Society policy in their respective countries and that they therefore should participate in discussions to consider how the Society's resources were allocated and managed.
2001 budget The Council approved a budget for 2001 that was expected to result in a year-end surplus of £230,000.
Calculation questions in registration examination The Council approved a strategy of the examiners for the registration examination that would allow them to be satisfied about trainees' ability to perform mathematical calculations. The examiners had agreed that in 2001 the number of calculation questions in the examination should increase to 20 from the current minimum of 15, and from 2002 candidates would have to achieve a score of 70 per cent in the calculations in addition to achieving the pass mark for the examination overall.

Attendance Those present at the meeting, which was held on December 5 and 6, at 1 Lambeth High Street, London SE1, were the President (Mrs Christine Glover), the Vice-President (Mr Marshall Davies), the Treasurer (Mr David Allen), Dr Gordon Appelbe, Mr Hassan Argomandkhah, Mrs Terri Banks, Mr Andrew Burr, Mr Peter Curphey, Mr Sultan Dajani, Mr William Darling, Professor William Dawson, Mr Digby Emson, Dr John Evans, Miss Alison Ewing, Dr Nicola Gray, Dr Gillian Hawksworth, Mrs Patricia Hoare, Professor Clare Mackie, Mr Alan Nathan, Mr Hemant Patel, Mr Kirit Patel, Mrs Helen Remington, Professor Michael Schofield, Mrs Linda Stone, and the Secretary and Registrar (Miss Ann Lewis). Also present were the vice-chairman of the Society's Scottish Executive (Mr David Thompson) and the chairman of the Welsh Executive (Mr Colin Ranshaw). Present by invitation were Miss Celia Gordon-Smith (representative of the Society's Cheltenham and Gloucester branch), Mrs Norma Irvine (secretary of the Society's Enfield branch), Miss Claire Parfrey (secretary of the Society's Great Yarmouth and Waveney branch), Mr Peter Jones (member of the Society's Welsh Executive) and Ms Frances Owusu-Daaku (senior lecture, Kumasi university, Ghana).
Dinner guests Among the guests of the Council at dinner on December 5 were Mr Gary Flather, Hon MRPharmS, and Lady Flather, and Mr Terry Maguire, Hon MRPharmS, along with Mr Thompson, Mr Ranshaw, Miss Gordon-Smith, Mrs Irvine, Miss Parfrey, Mr Jones and Ms Owusu-Daaku.