The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7191 p431-434
30 March 2002

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Letters to the Editor

The Journal

Worryingly low survey response

From Mr M. P. Smith, MRPharmS

What an apathetic profession we are! When you asked us to express our views on the future of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (PJ, 16 February, p226) only 376 people could be bothered to reply (PJ, 16 March, p379). There may be several reasons for this: some pharmacists may not have received that issue of the PJ, some people may be on extended vacation. But surely a more likely reason is that pharmacists are not interested in what the Society is doing in their name. Or, more likely, they do not feel that their views will have any effect on the decisions made at Lambeth.

I just hope that the permanent staff at the Society do not believe that they have a mandate for the future. To put the information in context based on figures supplied by the registration department on 20 March:

• 376 replied out of a 44,446 at present on the register (0.8 per cent)
• Option 1 — The status quo. (0.06 per cent)
• Option 2 — Retaining the regulatory and professional roles within a reformed Society (0.6 per cent)
• Option 3 — Splitting the regulatory and professional roles of the Society with the Society retaining the professional role (0.07 per cent)
• Option 4 — Splitting the regulatory and professional roles of the Society with the Society retaining the regulatory role (0.1 per cent)
• Option 5 — Merging the Society with other pharmacy bodies (0.04 per cent)

It is worrying that the number expressing an opinion was so low. If the Council should put the options to a vote then it is important that the options are expressed in an unbiased form and that the importance of the membership's expression of their opinion is stressed.

Mel Smith
Hull

Most of us don't care about modernisation

From Mr C. Payne, MRPharmS

In your leading article (PJ, 16 March, p348) you state that "over" 370 pharmacists had responded to your previously published survey regarding the future of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Since 370 is less than 1 per cent of the total possible response, I suggest that "only" would have been more appropriate. You then attempt to detract from this pathetic response by employing superficially misleading terminology: "The overwhelming majority of those who responded ..." There is only one conclusion here, and that is that the overwhelming majority of pharmacists (over 99 per cent) really could not care less.

Conrad Payne
Haddenham, Cambridgeshire

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