The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7183 p153
2 February 2002

PDF* 50K

From the President

What membership means

The Government has published its response to the report of Professor Sir Ian Kennedy's inquiry into children's heart surgery at Bristol Royal Infirmary. Despite running to nearly 200 pages, it makes compelling reading (www.doh.gov.uk/bristolinquiryresponse). In its acceptance of most (although not all) of the inquiry's recommendations, the government has set out a clear framework for how health professional regulators are now expected to meet the needs of modern society.

Some of the key themes — greater public involvement, improved accountability, shared learning, continuing professional development (CPD), revalidation — have been the subject of debate and developmental thinking for some time by the regulators themselves, patient organisations and others. Other innovations, such as the establishment of an over-arching regulator of regulators, are already being brought forward.

What is clear is that Professor Sir Ian Kennedy's vision of professional health regulation is now firmly embedded. Founded on the need to assure the public of the competence and fitness to practise of health professionals and when necessary to provide protection to the public, Kennedy's recommendations effectively remake the contract between society and the health professions.

Modern definition

This modern definition of professional regulation includes all the processes that combine to assure competence and fitness to practise — including controlled entry into a profession, education, registration, setting and enforcing professional standards, promoting good practice, training, CPD, assessing competence, revalidation, dealing with poor performance, dealing with misconduct and removal from the register.

Even at a first glance, it is evident that such a definition better reflects the Society's remit and culture than those of some other health regulators. For the Society, "regulation" already encompasses roles that are not based in statute but none the less contribute to the protection of the public. The particular way that the Society has evolved during its long history (PJ, 19 January, p74) means that the organisation had already assumed — and had had ratified through grant of Charter — educational and professional development roles by the time it received its formal statutorily based powers as a regulator in 1933. It is my view that this long experience of the synergy between professional development and statutory roles is an opportunity and gives the Society a head start towards becoming a world-class regulator and professional leader in the modern sense.

The steering group that is taking forward the Society's modernisation programme has now held its first meeting and it is already evident that there will be much change to consider, debate, communicate and implement. The prospect of change — particularly as yet unknown change — naturally creates anxiety and concern. But, as a profession, we are not unused to change: over recent years, we have seen new priorities emerge both in the profession and externally that have reshaped the work of the Society.

Critical time

This is a critical time for the profession as we face the challenge of ensuring that pharmacists can practise under the auspices of a first-rate regulatory body managed within the profession. It is right that the debate about the Society's future remit and roles is gathering momentum and I would encourage members to think and talk about these issues.

In this light, I would ask those who are sceptical of the need for the Society to engage with the new regulatory agenda to consider how pharmacists would benefit from non-engagement. The Council for the Regulation of Healthcare Professions, currently being minted through the NHS Reform Bill, will have an explicit remit to act where a regulator is seen to be failing. Of course, our recognition of the modernisation imperative does not take away our right — not to say, duty — to seek to influence the shape of things to come. The Society has shown how forcefully it can argue the profession's case on the modernisation of regulation in the public interest, most recently during the passage through the Commons of the NHS Reform and Health Professions Bill.

Membership organisation

A question that causes concern is whether the Society is to continue to be a membership organisation. To my mind, this goes without saying but I think that there needs to be more clarity about the kind of membership organisation that we can and should be.

My dictionary defines "membership" as "the state of being one of a society", which feels right. Our membership of the Society is the basis of our contract with society as a whole, proclaiming that we are in good standing and are uniquely competent to provide vital professional services. Membership of our Society is about what we bring to the whole, not what we take. For us, membership is earned and confers a privileged right to practise. We are not shareholders; we do not join with a view to enjoying a range of goods or services.

What else does membership of the Society offer to members? It confers access to the professional infrastructure, support, tools and information that help pharmacists to deliver quality in their practice. The Society promotes excellence and innovation in education and practice. It offers benevolent support in times of need. It deals with unacceptable practice and behaviour. Our organisation also works to influence the climate within which policy affecting the profession is made and implemented. The Society's Charter does not provide a remit to assume trade union or trade body roles by representing the interests of individuals or sectors of practice: these roles are properly filled by other organisations. The Society does, however, foster peer networking, mutual support, learning, and development through its local networks, with whom we have spent the past year considering how to modernise in order to meet future needs.

The Society has always been an organisation that evolves to meet new times, building on what has gone before. One of the main objects of the Society's 1953 Charter is: "To maintain the honour and safeguard and promote the interests of the members in their exercise of the profession of pharmacy." Update the archaic language, and this could form the basis of the modern definition of an effective regulator, where professional developments inform and support competence and fitness to practise and where the public and professional interests are as one.

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