The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7209 p148
3 August 2002

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National Pharmaceutical Association (www.npa.co.uk)

Big multiples get seats on NPA board

Moss Pharmacy and Lloydspharmacy are to gain places on the National Pharmaceutical Association's board of management from September. The NPA's board has agree to provide co-opted places for members owning 750 pharmacies or more. This means that places will be allocated to Moss and Lloyds. Boots The Chemists is the only other chain of more than 750 pharmacies, but the company is not an NPA member.

The decision to provide places is part of a review of the board's organisational structure in line with its five-year strategic plan (PJ, 15 September 2001, p343). The NPA says that changes in its membership and its current system of election have left some members, particularly larger multiples, feeling disenfranchised and without a voice. Although these members may have large numbers of pharmacies, they have not had enough in any one voting area in order to gain an elected place on the board. Co-opted places will not affect the 21 directly elected places on the board.

Andrew Murdock, director of pharmacy at Lloyds, currently an elected member of the board, will give up his place and become one of the co-opted members. Companies that gain co-opted board places will lose their votes in elections to the NPA board.

The board is reviewing its composition, including representation of the NPA regions and how these should be defined; the representational needs of members of differing sizes; and how Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are represented.

Other matters considered at the board's July meeting are reported below.

NPA membership The number of members of the NPA has dropped from 4,859 in 2001 to 4,690 this year, although the number of pharmacies owned by members has only dropped by 18.

Modernisation response Following a presentation from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's director of professional development, Philip Green, and Immediate Past-President Christine Glover, the NPA's board remains unconvinced that the Society's Modernisation Steering Group has fully explored, and promoted to the Government, options for the constitution of the Council. Board members agreed that the Society's leaders appeared to be resigned to the Society adopting a constitution similar to other regulatory bodies, where the professional majority could be as few as one. The board did not accept that the Society could perform both [regulatory and professional] roles under a constitution devised for a purely regulatory body (PJ, 6 July, p4).

The NPA wants to see all pharmacist members of Council being elected by the membership as a whole. It wants to see the single transferable vote (STV) system ended and an "X" system of voting implemented in its place. Board members believe that the STV system is complex and might put members off casting their votes.

Dispensary staff The board continues to raise concerns about the Society's policy that, by 2005, staff involved in the dispensing process should be trained to a minimum of National Vocational Qualification Level 2 or equivalent. The NPA does not support this proposal and has been active in attempting to influence thinking on this matter. In particular, the NPA has highlighted two main problems with the NVQ Level 2 qualification that it considers would make it difficult to comply with this new requirement:

• The level of bureaucracy involved in the NVQ process, such as the need for trained assessors, makes it impractical for this to be the standard for dispensary assistants

• Many staff are part-time and do not carry out all tasks within the dispensing process and will not be able to collect evidence to demonstrate their competence over a period of time

The pharmacy sector committee (which advises the Society's Council on pharmacy practice matters) has asked for a summary of points of disagreement and suggestions for workable solutions in order that the matter can be developed with options for the Society's Council to consider. The NPA has therefore produced a document highlighting the important issues and its position.

Returned medicines The NPA is to publish advice on risk assessment and produce a protocol for dealing with the return of unwanted medicines. The NPA will discuss with the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee the need for pharmacists to be properly remunerated for accepting and sorting returned medicines.