The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7190 p397-401
23 March 2002

This page
Reprint
Photocopy

PDF* 75K

  Remuneration
  Pharmacist prescribing
  Community pharmacy
  Checking technicians
  MMR
  Careers
  CPD
  Packaging
  Baddy chemists
  GSK
  The Profession
  Council elections
  The Society

Letters to the Editor

The Society

What are the real modernisation options?

From Mr D. R. Knowles, MRPharmS

I see that members of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society are being asked to record their preferences for the five modernisation options set out in the PJ of 16 February (p226). I suggest that the real options are not those currently offered for consideration. What happens in medicine might be a better starting point for discussion in the post-Bristol world.

The medical profession has:

• General Medical Council (responsible for statutory registration, competence and conduct)
• British Medical Association (an effective trade union affiliated to the TUC looking after the interests of doctors and issuing non-statutory guidance on practice and which publishes a forward-looking, world-renowned journal)
• Royal colleges (providing educational standards for specialist trainees, job descriptions and standards for NHS posts, professional practice standards etc)

These simple arrangements serve the medical profession well.

Our Society is, and has been for decades, a confused amalgam of statutory and representational functions with irresolvable internal conflicts of interest which are made worse by the enforcement powers under the Medicines Act and other acts. (What other professional body is charged with initiating prosecution of its members?)

Furthermore, sectional, non-professional issues for pharmacists are equally confused due to the existence of a plethora of narrowly focused organisations concerned with NHS contract remuneration, a trade union, bodies representing employers etc.

The narrow range of options currently being explored by the Society will lead nowhere useful. The Society is only one player but it must endeavour to widen the debate to include all of pharmacy.

Pharmacists need proper, unencumbered representation as well as high professional standards and a body that will ensure representation of the interests of pharmacists. There is no place for enforcement within this set-up and these powers should be held by the Medicines Control Agency.

I submit that the Society must be bold and strong enough to take the lead in a genuine broad-based debate on the way forward for pharmacists. I suggest that all representative bodies in pharmacy should be invited to a joint conference to discuss how they can produce real options for change which will result in more effective structures. This debate should be in public.

David Knowles
Exeter, Devon

Previous Topic (Council elections)
Send your letter to The Editor