The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7201 p822
8 June 2002

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End of the Society as we know it?

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society's modernisation programme could be "the end of the Society as we know it", according to Douglas Simpson, former editor of The Pharmaceutical Journal. Addressing the Society's Birmingham branch on 22 May, Mr Simpson suggested that biased information was being used to undermine the Society's time-honoured representational role and to reposition it predominantly as a regulatory body.

Describing the origins of the Society, Mr Simpson said that it had always been a representative body for pharmacists. Its primary purpose had always been to protect the collective and individual interests and privileges of its members and to advance pharmacy. Royal charters, sanctioned by government, provided for this.

Mr Simpson contrasted these views with recent Journal leading articles stating that the Society was not a membership organisation and the Lambeth view that the Society could only represent the profession as a whole. Even when the Pharmacy and Poisons Act 1933 made membership compulsory, the government had provided for the Society's Council, as representing the profession, to be masters of their own house. The Act did nothing to undermine that representative role. By establishing the Statutory Committee as independent of the Council, the Act allowed a regulatory role to be combined with the existing representational role.

The 1953 Supplemental Charter recognised that many pharmacists were employees and charged the Society with the task of being the national body to represent the interests of every pharmacist. Nothing had happened since to change the position.

Mr Simpson said that the consultation on the Society's modernisation process gave the impression that Lambeth was developing a mindset that saw the Society primarily as a regulatory body, with professional representation taking second place. The President (Marshall Davies) had declared that the Society should primarily be dedicated to the public interest, and that it could not and should not support sectoral pharmacy interests or particular agendas. His language was that of a regulator focused on Kennedy to the exclusion of almost everything else. However, Mr Simpson said, the President was not in a position to reposition the Society and was exceeding his powers. The Charter had not changed. The President and the Council were still bound by it.

In addition, the Jenkin judgement did not preclude the Society from concerning itself with the economics of pharmacy and assisting its members in all branches of the profession. There was nothing to stop the Society from supporting sectoral interests, and it had been doing so for years.

Although a Journal article by the President had sought to reassure the profession that the Society would continue as a membership organisation, Mr Simpson was unsure that others would share the President's view of what membership organisation meant. The President's view of the chartered objective of "maintaining the honour and safeguarding the interests of the members in the exercise of the profession of pharmacy" was that it was the basis for an effective health care regulator. But he was wrong: the 1953 Charter wording had been carefully developed from the 1843 Charter wording on "the protection of those carrying on the business of chemists and druggists". This was not a regulatory function.

The consultations were being rushed, and Society material was biased and made debatable assertions. The Journal did not help by following the official line, instead of standing back and offering a considered view.

Now that the Council had gone for the option of combining professional and regulatory roles, the way in which it developed was crucial. It had been suggested that up to half of the Council should be lay people, but that was unacceptable and would wreck the Society as a body representing the interests of pharmacists. What role would publishing, the biggest activity, have in the Society as a regulator? What about other functions associated with representing the interests of pharmacists (the most important role), the library, the museum, running the regions and branches, and the various conferences? The Welsh and Scottish offices were almost totally concerned with representational matters.

The only sensible way forward was to reform the regulatory processes within the Society so as not to compromise the representational role. Mr Simpson commended the Young Pharmacists Group proposal for a regulation and compliance committee within the Society's structure to deal with the Kennedy agenda. It would comprise pharmacy and lay representatives, with the pharmacy representatives having a majority of one.

In this way the Council would remain the over-arching body and would continue its professional representation and leadership role. The vast majority of its members would be pharmacists and there should be no question of any officers being non-pharmacists. The Statutory Committee would remain as now, but have wider sanctions and an increased lay participation. Such changes could be made without changing the Charter.

As to the suggestion by The Journal that an over-arching body to represent pharmacy and pharmacists was needed, Mr Simpson said the Society was that body, and that The Journal, of all publications, should know it.
— Contributed by Anthony Cox, committee member, Birmingham branch.