The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 271 No 7257 p45-46
12 July 2003

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Letters to the Editor

Modernisation

Confidence needs rebuilding

From Mr G. S. Phillips, MRPharmS

The article from Dr Gill Hawksworth, the new President of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (PJ, 21 June, p871) was both timely and welcome. As your editorial suggests (ibid, p848), following the turbulence of the annual general meeting and the special general meeting, a change of style and attitude at Lambeth is needed.

Where I have to disagree with your editorial is that we should wait two years until Dr Hawksworth's presidency is over to make a judgement. The profession has nothing like that amount of time in which to accommodate the Government's regulatory changes and the membership is certainly not willing to wait for two years.

So, if, as she claims, the President is truly a listening president, I hope she will take on board the following suggestions. After all, the Save Our Society campaign, too, is acting in good faith.

The profession is happy with the way the Society performs its regulatory role. It is also happy that the Society should retain its professional representative role. So the Council and the membership are not really that far apart. In fact the only real point of difference is the prominence of the representational role, the adequacy with which the role is fulfilled, and whether the Society is truly committed to it.

In this context one has to question why the representational object within the Society's current Royal Charter — "to maintain the honour and safeguard and promote the interests of the members in their exercise of the profession of pharmacy" — fails to appear in the draft new Charter.

This is of the utmost significance. A chartered organisation can only carry out those functions set out in the charter objects. Charter powers are subsidiary to the objects — indeed the draft new Charter states (p7) that the powers can be exercised "in furtherance of the objects but not otherwise". Thus the absence of representation within the objects means that this function is irretrievably lost.

The need for a new Charter remains in doubt. It would seem perfectly feasible to amend the existing one, and no justification for not doing so has been offered.

One has to question why a move toward charitable status was ever proposed, given that such status is incompatible with a representative function.

One also has to question why the Council has previously failed to pursue seriously the two-board model proposed and overwhelmingly supported at the special general meeting.

Your editorial is right in that the new President must take the opportunity to rebuild members' confidence in Lambeth. It was reported in The Journal (14 June, p841) that Hemant Patel suggested that the Council should meet those who proposed the SGM to help settle these issues. This would be a significant step towards healing the wounds of recent years. Significantly, Immediate Past President Marshall Davies, who still leads the modernisation steering group, said there are "no plans to do so". It is time to replace him with another Council member who enjoys the members' confidence.

To date, the Society has sought legal advice from Robert Bulling, a Charter expert. However, his is not the only valid legal opinion. The Council should arrange for a presentation by the SOS campaign's legal expert. His advice will be invaluable in refining the two-board model, which can then be put to the minister for health.

May I respectfully ask the President to consider these suggestions as a way to end the internal divisions?

There is no reason why pharmacy should continue as the "Cinderella" profession. If the Society performs the representational role in the way that we are all agreed is necessary, pharmacists can look forward with confidence to a secure future within the NHS, based upon the application of pharmaceutical care. If, however, there continues to be no commitment to the membership we can look forward only to more blood on the carpet.

Graham Phillips
St Albans, Hertfordshire

Trust and openness have been lost

From Mr S. R. Maconochie, FRPharmS

I attended the last of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's roadshows at the Society's headquarters on 30 June. I had followed with both interest and frustration the correspondence in The Journal and the proceedings of the special general meeting. I could not but feel that the debate and suspicion surrounding the seeking of a new Charter mimicked the debate in the country as to whether or not we had been misled by the Government about the extent of the threat from Iraq.

There appears to be a fundamental lack of trust between the membership and its ruling Council and Officers. I believe that the regaining of this trust is fundamental to the health of the Society in whatever form the new Charter finally appears, so that it will be endorsed enthusiastically by the membership at large.

The incoming President has indicated that she will do a lot of listening and that is to be welcomed. But I would have much more confidence in her if she had not had to refer everything to the Secretary and Registrar for response at the roadshow meeting. The Secretary is there to support the President not to be her mouthpiece.

Trust and openness has, for the time being, been lost.

Stuart Maconochie
London SW10

The Council's plan is not a pup

From Mr M. J. S. Burden, FRPharmS

Hemant Patel (PJ, 14 June, p825) asks, where is that bogeyman? The bogeyman, like the devil, is in the detail. Whether we look at the Kennedy report and the Government's response to it, or the Shipman enquiry and the reaction to that, or the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Council's modernisation suggestions, or the discussion draft Charter, it is in the detail that the difficulties lie.

I have struggled during the past few months to get to grips with these difficulties. We are indeed faced with a complex set of situations.

For instance, Mark Koziol, speaking at the recent special general meeting (PJ, 7 June, p802), claimed that maintaining the honour and promoting the interests of the members lies at the soul of the profession. My own, equally passionately held view is that it is by promoting the interests of the public we serve that we will most successfully maintain the honour of the profession and promote the interests of the members.

Mr Koziol said that the Society would never be able to sell the members a pup. The Council's plan is not a pup, but it may well need to be reviewed and refined, even groomed. I hope the Council will now do that but unless, and until, we, the profession, put the patient and the public at the centre of our thinking we shall rightly be accused of self-interest, and we will not enjoy the support of the public or the Government — which we seem desperately to want and need.

Michael Burden
Leicester

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