The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7240 p378
15 March 2003

Society summary

From the President: A Charter for a world-class organisation

Last week, the Council made a unanimous decision to seek a new Royal Charter for the pharmacy profession (see report, p379). I cannot overemphasise the importance of this move, which aims to ensure that the Society retains the flexibility, autonomy and self-determination that Chartered status confers.

As well as completing the Society's governing framework, a new Charter will have the important outcome of allowing the Society to pursue and develop its role as a professional leadership body. The Charter will sit alongside legislation to create a robust, integrated framework that will take the Society into the future as a world class organisation of its kind.

The Society has always been rightly proud of its chartered status. The benefits it confers are many: flexibility, autonomy as well as the powers to undertake a broader range of appropriate activities than set out in the governing legislation, provided of course, these do not conflict with the public interest.

The original Charter, granted in 1843, established the Society as a Chartered corporation and set out the Society's objects, structure and some of its powers. Since then, supplemental Charters have been granted in 1901, 1948 and 1953. The Council itself is constituted jointly by Charter and legislation and is responsible for the discharge of all the Society's functions whether provided by Charter or legislation.

Many readers of The Pharmaceutical Journal will be familiar with the background to the Society's modernisation programme through which the Council is working to create a modern, effective regulatory and professional body for pharmacists. In theory, the programme of reform could be achieved solely through legislation through an Order in Council under Section 60 of the Health Act. However, this could leave the Society's Charter to wither on the vine, serving no real purpose other than to incorporate the Society. In order to retain and improve the advantages that chartered status confers, the Council has, therefore, decided that there should be a new Charter.

And there is also a strong possibility that, if the Society does not update its Charter concurrently with new legislation, the Government will use legislation to act directly on the Charter, not necessarily with the Society's agreement. The Charter would then effectively be overwritten by legislation, which could make it more uncertain that the Society could achieve the best outcome for the profession and the public it serves. It could also reduce the Society's ability to achieve desirable change in the future, as powers under the Charter could be lost.

Not surprisingly for a 50-year-old document, the 1953 Charter is out of date in many crucial respects. The Council agreed that just amending the current Charter would not make it fit for the future and that an entirely new Charter was what was needed.

Having taken the decision to seek a new Charter, the Council now intends to launch a wide-ranging programme of consultation with the membership and other stakeholders on the content of the Charter.

The Council is committed to ensuring the widest possible consultation process, with the membership and with the key stakeholders to explain the issues that led to its decision and to seek views to inform the content of the new Charter. A wide-ranging communications programme is being planned to enable us to reach as many members as possible in order to stimulate debate and feedback.

Over the coming months, we will be taking the opportunity to talk to pharmacists through the Society's branches and regions, the pharmacy press, the website, the annual general meeting and branch representatives' meeting and by other means. This is a crucial moment in the profession's history and it is important that as many pharmacists as possible take part in the process that will lead to a new Charter. My colleagues and I will be working to communicate the issues, stimulate debate and collect feedback.