The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7170 p577-581
20 October 2001

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Society News summary

2002 budget includes museum cutbacks

Public access to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s museum and the organisation of museum events aimed at the public are to end as the result of a cut in museum funding in the Society’s budget for 2002.

In a news release, the Society says that the 2002 budget, which was approved by the Council at its meeting on 2 and 3 October, is “a budget set to take the profession forward”. But it adds that the Council had to take the difficult decision to end public access to the museum from next year and to cease educational outreach for this activity.

The Society says that the budget for 2002 provides for the development of the Society’s role as a modern health regulator, while maintaining essential core activities. Additionally, allowance has been made for some refurbishment of the headquarters building and the re-establishment of appropriate cash reserves to fund cash flow.

Commenting on the budget decisions, the President, Marshall Davies, said: “The budget we have set will enable us to focus on vital work to support the future of the pharmacy profession at a time when there are new and far-reaching demands being made on all health professional regulatory bodies.

“There have been some hard decisions to face and it was with regret that the Council agreed to curtail the role of the museum. In recent years, this aspect of the Society’s work has been successful in giving the public access to pharmacy’s roots and history. We are now in a position where we need to harness our resources for the profession’s future.”

A major feature of the budget is the Society’s request to the Privy Council for a new individual member retention fee of £186 to fund a programme to modernise the profession’s statutory framework and to ensure that the Society is aligned with best practice in health professional regulation. This programme includes:

• Modernising the regulatory framework within which the profession operates, the Society’s constitution and ways of working to meet new requirements
• Implementing a programme of continual professional development and life-long learning to ensure that the profession stays competent to practise
• Continuing to develop clinical governance and wider quality initiatives in England, Scotland and Wales
• Developing policy, an evidence base and an information technology infrastructure to support a modern regulatory framework

Other budget decisions made by the Council include the following:

British Pharmaceutical Conference The Society’s contribution to the 2002 British Pharmaceutical Conference is to be capped at £150,000 and ways of achieving this are currently being considered. A review of the future of the conference is also under way.

Contracts review The Society is to save more than £100,000 as a result of a critical review of its operations and services contracts.

Headquarters building A review of health and safety standards in the headquarters building has revealed a need for urgent work to comply with legal requirements. In addition, some original plant and machinery, although not a safety hazard, are in need of replacement. Some updating and refurbishment of the building is to be carried out to provide an appropriate working environment for the 180 staff and to maintain the relative value of the building.

Implementing the museum decision

Implementation of the decision on the future of the museum will not affect public access to the museum’s current art exhibition, which runs until 4 January 2002.

The Society has asked the museum curator, Caroline Reed, to identify strategies for safeguarding the historical collections. Other actions that will need to be taken to implement the Council decision are being identified and planned.

The Society will need to re-examine the museum’s constitution, adopted by the Council in 1996, and its acquisition and disposals policy, which the Council adopted as recently as four months ago. The constitution says, among other things, that the museum “will collect, document, preserve, exhibit and interpret material evidence and associated information for the benefit of Society members and the wider public”. The acquisition and disposals policy begins by stating that the museum exists “to promote public and professional understanding of the history of the practice of pharmacy in Great Britain” and “to encourage public and professional appreciation and enjoyment of artefacts associated with that history”.

Another question that will have to be considered is whether the decision on the museum will require an amendment to the Society’s Byelaws. Section XXVI, Paragraph 1, of the Byelaws require that: “The Society shall maintain a museum for the benefit of members and students of the Society and members of the public interested in the profession of pharmacy”.

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