The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7197 p646-648
11 May 2002

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Letters to the Editor

The Society

Missing the point

From Mr R. Blyth, FRPharmS, Mr J. Ferguson, FRPharmS, and Mr D. I. Simpson, FRPharmS

The Secretary and Registrar (PJ, April 27, p572), in defending your leading article of 6 April, p452, fails to address the point that we raised (PJ, April 20, p537). This was that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, which is a hybrid body, was being directly compared by The Journal to two purely regulatory bodies, namely, the Nursing and Midwifery Council and the Health Professions Council, which were replacing two other purely regulatory bodies. This made comments in your leading article invalid. Those comments, readers may recall, included reference to the "the old guard" and "disaffected members" seeing the end "of life as they have known it" and offered unalloyed praise to the NMC and the HPC. By implication, the leading article was critical of those of us concerned to see no compromising of the Society's ability to act as a professional association. Indeed, the Society as a such an association seemed to be categorised as "baggage from the past".

Miss Lewis indicates that she welcomes contributions to the debate on modernisation. In that regard, it would have been helpful if she had provided a full reference to "the new blueprint for health profession regulation" to which she refers. We would then be in a position to provide an informed contribution that we would intend to be constructive.

Robert Blyth
Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire

John Ferguson
Haywards Heath, West Sussex

Douglas Simpson
Beckenham, Kent

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