The Society

News

Registrar's report
Presentation to Bill Darling
New leaflet on pharmacists and the Society

Registrar's report: 1,062 more pharmacists on register in 2000

The report of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Registrar for 2000 shows an increase of 1,062 in the total number of persons on the Register of Pharmaceutical Chemists.

The total membership at the end of the year was 44,427, a rise of 2.4 per cent on the previous year-end total of 43,365. The average annual increase over the past 10 years has been 665.

The number of pharmacy premises at the end of the year was 12,258 — 53 fewer than at the beginning of the year. This compares with an increase of one during 1999.

The Registrar's report is set out in the table below, with the 1999 figures given for comparison.

Presentation to Bill Darling

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society's longest serving Council member, Bill Darling, has been presented with a drug storage jar to mark his retirement from the Council this year. Mr Darling is stepping down after serving continuously for 39 years (PJ, April 7, p457). He was President of the Society from 1970 to 1972.

The drug jar is a modern replica of an English delftware jar in the Society's museum collection. The original jar, which dates from the early 18th century, is labelled “E. MITHRIDATIUM” — an ancient theriac or “treacle” said to have been been invented by Mithridates, king of Pontus in Asia Minor in the second century BC as an antidote to poison. Mithridatium was still in use into the 18th century as a general panacea.

New leaflet on pharmacists and the Society

A new leaflet available from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has been designed to provide an overview of the key roles of pharmacists and their regulatory and professional body.

“Helping pharmacists achieve excellence” describes the way in which pharmacists use their expertise and knowledge in the provision of quality health care for patients. It explains their roles in supplying and advising on medicines, in working with other health professions and in providing health-related services such as general advice on minor ailments.

The leaflet goes on to describe the Society's work to promote the development of higher standards of practice and to safeguard public health. It explains roles such as maintaining the register of pharmacists, supervising pharmacy education and training, improving practice standards, enforcing the law on the supply of medicines, providing information services to help pharmacists in their practice, and increasing awareness of pharmacy in the wider world.

Copies of the leaflet can be obtained from David Daley, Public Relations Unit, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, 1 Lambeth High Street, London SE1 7JN (e-mail ddaley@rpsgb.org.uk). Plans are in hand to make the leaflet available on the Society's website (www.rpsgb.org.uk).