The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7231 p51
11 January 2003

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Letters to the Editor

The Society

Leading the way to break-up of the Society

From Mr N. L. Wood, FRPharmS

The announcements in The Pharmaceutical Journal (14 December 2002, p863 et seq) that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society is to seek charitable status, will register technicians, and is to separate publishing from other activities of the Society, should leave members in no doubt that after 160 years the Society is to be broken up. Many members will not care greatly, and most will fail to see the significance of the announcement, but my purpose in writing is to make quite plain what is about to happen.

Publishing is the most profitable of the Society's activities. It contributes about half of the Society's funds. As a company, the Pharmaceutical Press will be a valuable asset. Indeed it is so valuable an asset that a future Council, in perhaps not so many years time, will find the attraction of the money so irresistible that the Pharmaceutical Press will be sold regardless of the assurances and platitudes that are given today. A major asset built up and owned by the members of the Society will be lost forever.

With the demise of this major membership service comes the proposal for charitable status. Although this may sound an attractive proposition, charitable status would require a change in the Charter objects of the Society, specifically in object four, part three, which is "to maintain the honour and safeguard and promote the interests of the members in the exercise of their profession of pharmacy". Charitable status will restrict the activities of the Society to promoting the interests of members only so far as they are consistent with charitable status. The representation of pharmacy and pharmacists will no longer be in the remit of the Society working as a body that promotes the interests of its members.

Finally, the decision to register technicians with the Society, will lead inevitably to another "class" of membership, that of registered technician and (as already proposed) seats for technicians on the Council of what was once the membership body for pharmacists alone. It will become impossible for the Charter objective mentioned above to remain in place if the interests of technicians and pharmacists (say on supervision) were to come into conflict.

These developments, taken with the controversial changes proposed for the composition of the Council, signal the beginning of the end for the Society. This assertion will of course be denied and reassurances given, but the membership should be in no doubt that the sweep of history, once started is probably unstoppable. The developments put into place by the present Council and its Officers are very likely to occur unless a wholesale change of policy takes place. Members will need to reconcile the fact that after 160 years, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society — a unique body worldwide — will soon cease to exist in any aspect previously recognisable.

In 1993 I was privileged to serve as president of the Society. I had been particularly fortunate to serve as David Coleman's vice-president during the 150th anniversary celebrations of the granting of the Society's Royal Charter. At the time, the future of the Society seemed secure. My objective as president was, first, to advance the cause of the profession (our "team", then at Lambeth, promoted and later secured the four-year degree programme) and, secondly, to hand the Society on, intact, to the generation that came after.

I count the current President and the Secretary and Registrar as friends, along with many other members of Council. However, in modernising the Society, they are leading the way to its break-up. It greatly saddens me that the work, dedication and effort of generations past is to be undone in this way, and that the membership, past and present, is to be so betrayed. The 200th anniversary of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, if there is to be one at all, will have little to do with pharmacists.

Nicholas Wood
Brentwood, Essex

Drawbacks in charitable status

From Mr D. Simpson, FRPharmS

Without any prior warning or consultation with the membership, we are now told that the Council is to seek charitable status for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society by December 2003 or soon afterwards (PJ, 14 December 2002, p866). The President also tells us that the Council "discussed the matter at length and saw only benefit in it".

We will have to take his word for that, because no report of the debate has been published.

But is the Council as sheep-like as the President implies? Has it been fully briefed? I cannot believe that there are no misgivings about splitting off the publishing activities of the Society into a separate organisation, which would, we are told in a PJ leading article (PJ, 14 December 2002, p834), be one of the consequences of seeking charitable status.

And I cannot believe that there are no Council members who are not concerned about the constraints on the Society's activities that charitable status would bring. If charitable status does not require any change to the Society's objects or activities, surely it would have been sought before now.

The Society was awarded a Charter that requires it to "maintain the honour and safeguard and promote the interests of members in their exercise of the profession of pharmacy". If it had not been in the public interest to do so, the Charter would not have been granted. But while it was in the public interest that the Charter be granted, that is not the same thing as saying that the Society's function is to serve the public interest. There is a difference between serving the interests of pharmacists in the public interest and directing all activities so as to serve the public interest, which is what charities are required to do. The latter, it seems to me, leaves the interest of pharmacists pretty much out of the equation, which is contrary to the Society's chartered objects.

The Society, as a charity, would have to satisfy the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales and the Scottish Charities Office that it was constituted and behaving in an appropriate manner. In guidance issued by the Charity Commission, it is made clear that charities must not be political. This is not to say that they cannot engage in political activities, but they cannot do so "without restraint".

One thing is sure. Charitable status will not allow the Society to do more for its members in terms of representing and protecting their interests than it does now. It could mean that it does a lot less. Is that worth trading for the sums estimated by the President? Members will need a better explanation than they have had up to now if they are to be convinced that this is the right route to take — assuming, of course, that Lambeth still cares what the members think.

Douglas Simpson
Beckenham, Kent

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