The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7199 p739-746
25 May 2002

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161st Annual General Meeting summary

Concerns about Society's modernisation programme

Concerns about the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's modernisation programme were the main items raised by members of the Society during the discussion forum before the annual general meeting on 15 May.

Dr STEVEN KAYNE (Glasgow) asked how the Society saw its Scottish and Welsh executives fitting into the modernisation programme.

The PRESIDENT replied that policies relating to the practice of pharmacy could be developed through the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. However, the regulatory role was a reserved power of the Westminster Parliament, for the whole of the United Kingdom. So far as the modernisation arrangements related to the Scottish Executive and the Welsh Executive, these matters had not been discussed. They would be discussed by the modernisation group in due course. The Council had just determined the Society's role and remit so far. As part of that review, there will be consultation with members in Scotland and Wales.

The SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR said that the lack of seats on the Council for the chairmen of the Scottish and Welsh executives would have to be rectified in the modernisation programme. They were there now at the Council's invitation but not there constitutionally.

The meeting was advised that representatives from Scotland and Wales sat on the modernisation steering group. A representative from Northern Ireland also attended.

The PRESIDENT (Marshall Davis) said that strategy days had been held in Scotland and in Wales. They had been beneficial because issues specific to Scotland and Wales had emerged.

Asked whether the Society's modernisation work was likely to require changes to the Charter, the VICE-PRESIDENT (Dr Gill Hawksworth) said that that could not be determined at present. But other regulatory bodies that had have amended the composition of their councils had done so through a Section 60 Order.

The SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR (Ann Lewis) said that the Charter provided for pharmacists to be on the Council, but other membership could be authorised by legislation, as was the case with the present Privy Council nominees.

ANTHONY COX (Birmingham) asked how many people had responded to the consultation on the modernisation process.

Mrs CHRISTINE GRAY (project manager for the modernisation programme) said that 106 responses were received, one being the result of The Journal survey, which had about 370 responses. But the response represented many more people because a number of responses came from organisations, both within pharmacy and outside.

SYDNEY SOUTHWELL (London) asked whether the Government had imposed a time scale for the health professions to comply with the new definition of regulation and put their houses in order.

The VICE-PRESIDENT said that although there was no defined time scale it would happen rapidly. The NHS and Health Care Professions Bill, which would establish a Council for the Regulation of Health Care Professionals, had almost completed its passage through Parliament. That council would be the driving force to ensure that the health professions came up to scratch. The process would not be slow.

The PRESIDENT said that the Council for the Regulation of Health Care Professionals would be constituted later this year when the Bill has been enacted. The Bill required the Council to report to Parliament annually, and the Society's performance would form part of that report.

The SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR said that the Society would probably also become directly accountable to Parliament, as other health care professions were.

Mr COX said that surely the Society was accountable to its membership. Was it possible to make the regulatory part accountable to Parliament and yet keep the Council accountable to the membership?

The SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR said that, in modern terms, the accountability needed to be to both. Ultimately the Council would be accountable to Parliament.

The PRESIDENT said that the Society was accountable to the membership in the sense that it was there to serve the public interest and to ensure that the membership had a robust and sustainable professional activity. It was not responsible to the membership in the sense of pursuing the members' specific interests should they be in conflict with the public interest.

Answering a question from EDWARD MALLINSON (Glasgow), the SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR said that the modernisation programme was the reason for the Society not replacing the two directors who had left its employment in 2001. The Society was reviewing the directorate structure in the light of the modernisation process. It had appointed an interim Director of Resources until the end of this year. In the Professional Standards Directorate, Helen Darracott and Stephen Lutener were jointly acting as directors and had specific roles in their own right.

CPD

JANE NICHOLSON (Slough) said that she practised pharmacy in the pharmaceutical industry, where many pharmacists felt disenfranchised by what appeared to be proposals to introduce continuing professional development based on practice in primary and secondary care. What was the intention for industrial pharmacists and others whose work was not necessarily directly related to the patient?

The VICE-PRESIDENT said that the CPD framework and its user-friendly materials and software were generic and just as applicable to academia or industry as to community or hospital practice. There was no good reason to suppose that meeting a mandatory CPD requirement would be any harder for industrial pharmacists than for other pharmacists.

The SECRETARY AND REGISTRAR said that the Society had been talking to people in a whole range of environments to determine the sort of competencies needed and the way in which CPD could role forward within that generic framework.

The TREASURER pointed out that an industrial pharmacist served on the CPD implementation committee.

Asked when the results of the CPD pilot would be published in a peer reviewed journal, Dr ROBERT DEWDNEY (head of education) said that the Society intended to publish in peer review journals many aspects of the work of the pilot. However, the top priority was to roll out a CPD system beginning this autumn. In the next few weeks, the Society would begin to implement a communication plan so that members were well informed about what would happen next.

Although the Society had not published in peer reviewed journals, it had presented the results to a number of audiences. The main reports had been to the Council, which had rigorously examined the information and the case put forward. Along the way the Society had invited national experts to review what it was doing. They included two professors of continuing professional development.

NHS strategy

BRIAN MILLER (East Metropolitan branch) asked whether the Council could offer any support to the Department of Health chief pharmacist in the problem that few strategic health authorities and regional offices of the health and social care departments had seen fit to appoint pharmacists to their organisations. There were almost no pharmacists above the level of primary care trusts within the NHS.

The PRESIDENT said that the matter had been raised with the Minister responsible for pharmacy and with Department of Health officials. In addition, the Society and other pharmacy bodies had sent a joint letter.

Supervision

ALAN ROGERS (Epsom) said that on top of coping with the modernisation agenda, practising pharmacists faced a mind-boggling information overload from documents generated by the Government, health authorities, primary care trusts and pharmacy bodies. None of this ever seemed to improve the lot of the poor front-line pharmacist who suffered constant attacks on his integrity and on his wallet. The Society's constant emphasis on how much pharmacists had to change implied that they were not doing a good job. Allowing the modernisation and clinical governance agendas to become a bureaucratic deluge reduced pharmacists' time for interface with patients.

This brought him to the matter of supervision and personal control. He had once been given an assurance that while supervision was under review, personal control was sacrosanct. But now the truth was out.

Mrs HELEN DARRACOTT (head of professional standards) said that the Society had no pre-set agenda on supervision. It wished to see whether a framework could be identified that would allow pharmacists the flexibility of delegating to suitably trained and competent staff.

PETER CURPHEY (member of Council) said that, as a small contractor himself, he was well aware of the pressures on the profession. There was a difference between modernising the Society and re-engineering the profession. The aim of the supervision debate was to allow pharmacists to practise as they wished within standards set by their professional body. The change to a modern regulator was an entirely different process, over which the Society had little choice. They were two important but separate streams.