The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7207 p88
20 July 2002

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PSNC (www.psnc.org.uk)

Society proposals ignore its Royal Charter and fail on proper professional representation, PSNC says

Any proposals to change the structure of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Council should uphold its Royal Charter and ensure satisfactory professional representation, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee believes. Current propositions from the Society's modernisation steering group do neither, it says.

Commenting on two discussion papers

(1) Discussion paper on the constitution of the Council (PDF*, 165K)
(2) Getting the balance right (PDF*, 165K)

from the Society (PJ, 15 June, p855 and 22 June, p883) the PSNC says that the Society's professional role should have equal prominence with its regulatory role. The PSNC strongly believes that that a representative function can only properly be performed by a body that is comprised overwhelmingly of members of the profession.

"The professional representative functions of the Society set out in the Supplemental Charter are distinct and important," the PSNC says. "The constitution of the Council must ensure that, as at present, these functions are performed by members of the profession."

In order to achieve this, the PSNC says, any change to the Council must ensure governance of the Society by pharmacists, and not by a body with a substantial minority of lay members.

The PSNC takes the view that the Society is a professional representative body that has been given regulatory functions by statute. If it is to act as a professional body that represents the views of the profession there must be a substantial majority of pharmacists on the Council. Any requirement for a substantial proportion of lay members to be involved in regulatory functions does not support their involvement in professional representative functions and the two functions should be clearly distinguished.

The Society's discussion papers also propose that Government chief pharmaceutical officers should attend Council meetings.

Seeing problems with this, the PSNC says that Government representatives have a legitimate interest in regulatory functions, but not in professional representation. They should only be allowed to attend debate on regulatory matters and their presence would be incompatible with debate on professional representative matters.

Commenting on how Council membership should be determined, the PSNC takes the view that all pharmacists members should be elected and that there should be a fair balance that reflects all sectors of professional practice and geographical regions.

  * PDF files on PJ Online require Acrobat Reader 4 or later.