The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 270 No 7252 p790
7 June 2003

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  SGM
  New Charter
  CD prescribing
  Asthma
  CFC-free inhaling
  Remuneration
  Branding
  Pharmacy closures
  Yellow cards
  Patient packs
  Penicillin
  The Society

Letters to the Editor

Special general meeting

Clear indictment of a lack of coherency

From Mr R. Norton, MRPharmS

In the past I have been guilty of a laissez-faire attitude when it has come to the internal affairs of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Having attended the special general meeting on 1 June, I now realise this was a serious mistake. I feel compelled to write to express my dismay about the leadership of our Society and the future direction in which it appears to be moving.

A large part of my previous indifference to the Society's workings has been based on a naive belief that the Council, elected by the Society's members, represents the views and interests of pharmacists. The SGM clearly confirmed how wrong I have been. In fact, the President's remarks showed that the Society leadership seems more concerned about keeping the Government on side than serving the interests of grassroots pharmacists. The membership appears to be paying its subscription fees to fund a quango.

The Council's apparent willingness to accept large-scale lay representation and the move to charitable status appear to have been recommended purely to pacify the Government and protect the Society's regulatory role. The passionate opposition to the Council's proposals at the SGM are a clear indictment of the lack of coherency between them and the membership as a whole.

Maybe it is time to start afresh. Clearly many of us have lost confidence in our Society's leadership. If we were in a public limited company, the shareholders would surely move to a vote of no confidence.

Richard Norton
Guildford, Surrey

I do hope the Society will listen

From Mr D. Sharpe, FRPharmS

I attended the special general meeting of members of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society on 1 June at which the current Council proposals for a new Charter were put to the test. Speaker after speaker demolished the Society's arguments and the Council was overwhelmingly defeated on each vote.

I am not and never have been a member of the Young Pharmacists Group but it is the YPG that led the opposition to the Council's attempt to change the fundamental nature of our Society, and I admire them for all the work they have so successfully done to make members aware of the threat we all face.

Every pharmacist should be grateful to the YPG for campaigning to prevent the Council pursuing its policies. Hundreds of pharmacists were there: young and old, politically active and not, present and former members of the Society staff, industrial pharmacists, community pharmacists and pharmacists employed directly by the National Health Service. They were not a vociferous minority of rabble-rousers; they were conciliatory, constructive, well-informed and articulate. They came with a legal adviser, a solicitor specialising in the field.

I hope the Society will, belatedly, listen and take heed. If so, future generations of pharmacists will owe the YPG a huge debt.

David Sharpe
Past President of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
London NW11

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