Society summary

Council to seek 31pc rise in retention fee

The Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society is to ask the Privy Council for a 31 per cent increase in the individual member retention fee from £142 to £186 for 2002. But new graduates entering the register after the beginning of 2002 would pay a reduced registration fee. The full scale of proposed fees appears in the Table.

Table: Current and proposed fees

Category Numbers 2001 (budget) Fees 2001 (actual) Numbers 2002 (budget) Fees 2002 (proposed) Change (per cent) Members Full-time 28,000 £142 28,900 £186 +31 Part-time 5,200 £80 5,300 £105 +31 Aged over 60 and not employed 4,100 £19 4,500 £20 +5 Overseas 4,000 £69 4,300 £90 +30 Registration 425 £141 1,500 £77 -45 Reciprocity 160 £141 230 £185 +31 Restoration 67 £306 80 £355 +16 Ill health 400 £19 400 £20 +5 Premises Retention 12,300 £92 11,726 £97 +5 Registration 400 £143 389 £150 +5 Restoration 20 £295 8 £310 +5 Preregistration Preregistration fee £77 £100 +30 Examination fee £75 £125 +67 Resit fee £47 £125 +166 Late entry fee £150 £250 +67 Resit late entry £94 £250 +166 Adjudication Adjudicating fee £379 £417 +10

The decision was taken by the Council on 8 August after many years in which fee increases have been kept in line with general inflation. The extra funding is being sought “to resource constitutional change and new areas of professional and regulatory activity that meet the government’s quality agenda and modern public expectation of health professionals”.

The new areas of activity that the Society needs to undertake fall into four main areas:

• Constitution, regulation and discipline “Like all other health professional regulators, the Society faces a far-reaching programme of modernisation of its structure and working practices”
• Continual professional development and life long learning “To ensure that the profession stays competent to practise”
• Clinical governance “Initial work in England has been supported by government. Support has now moved to local level and ongoing and new work in England, Scotland and Wales must be funded by the profession”
• Practice research “Creating the evidence base for pharmacy in the areas of workforce, ethics and education that will underpin the future of the profession”

Commenting on the proposal, the Society’s President, Marshall Davies, said: “Over the past 10 years, the retention fee has risen only at or below about the rate of general inflation while the scope of our activity has broadened in line with the members’ aspirations for the Society to develop into a more effective advocate for the profession. This means that our regulatory activity has been increasingly underpinned by the income from the Society’s publishing business, which contributed half the Society’s turnover during 2000. However, in a fast-changing environment, even this is not enough and cannot, in any event, be guaranteed as a funding stream for our core activities.

“We must now look to the profession to support our work for the future of pharmacy. This increase represents the first phase of the process to meet the Government’s agenda and will pay for those activities that are required next year. However, for future years we will need to consider the level of fee to meet future Government and professional requirements and explore other sources of funding, including from Government”.

Mr Davies added that the Council had taken its decision after careful scrutiny of the budgetary position and against a background of stringent economies made on operating budgets over the last two years.

The Society points out that its move is in line with other health professional regulators engaged in the modernisation of their powers and organisation, a number of which are known to be seeking increases in their fees to fund their programmes. The General Medical Council, for example, has recently announced that the fees for medical registration will increase from £170 to £290 from January 2002.

The Society’s total membership fee income for 2000 was £6m, of which £1.2m was derived from premises fees designed to pay for the inspectorate. The Council proposes to ask for a 5 per cent increase in the premises fee in line with increases in salary and travel costs.

See Official notices

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