President's address: Pharmacy has moved beyond crossroads
In her presidential address to the British Pharmaceutical
Conference in Harrogate on 17 September, Dr Gill Hawksworth said that
pharmacy had
moved beyond the crossroads at which it had been stalled for many years.
However, some challenges still remained. The President also addressed
the subject of modernisation of the Society. Clare Bellingham (on the staff
of The Journal) reports
The President of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, Dr Gill Hawksworth,
began her address by tackling the issue of regulation. “The Royal
Pharmaceutical Society has spent almost two years and a great deal of
effort on a programme to bring our entire governance framework up to
date. We intend to be a world-class regulatory and professional body,” she
said. “The Council has examined its powers, constitution and ways
of working and has made hundreds of proposals for change. We hope that
our proposals can be included in the new legislation that will be taken
forward through a Section 60 order.”
The President went on to say that the concept of regulation is changing. “Regulation
in health care is the framework that allows the public to be assured
that their safety is paramount. This means far more than sorting out
the bad apples.” She explained that it is also about managing the
standards and processes that support education, registration and competence
of a professional throughout his or her career.
“The Council’s decision to pursue the Society’s future
as a regulatory and professional body recognises the complex, interrelated
nature of professional governance,” she said. She added that this
broad scope of activity was not new for the Society: “Since it
gained its regulatory powers in 1933, the Society has discharged them
in synergy with its work as a professional body.”
The President declared: “We believe that our proposals for a Section
60 order will allow us to exercise our wide-ranging responsibilities
within a framework that is transparent and accountable and that has an
appropriate level of public involvement.”
Development of the profession
“Not so many years ago, a phrase we used to hear a lot was ‘pharmacy
is at the crossroads’. We appeared to [have been] stalled at that
crossroads for a long time: government after government did not seem
to know what to do with the profession. Certainly for many years, national
health policy was being made with little or no input from the profession.
But then the profession had no clear vision of where it wanted to go,” the
President said. The Society set out to remedy this situation and, after
consulting members, developed a vision for pharmacy, she explained. It
then worked to make the vision a reality, improving the Society’s
influence on public policy at both strategic and implementation levels
across the UK.
“
Today I think it is true to say that we have shifted into gear and pulled
away from the crossroads. We are on our way,” she said. “We
now have NHS pharmacy plans in all three countries of Great Britain,
and we have a recognition that pharmacists and their skills are key to
the success of patients managing their treatment.” She added: “Pharmacists
can be proud that they have helped to shape a future where they can make
an even greater contribution to the health care of the nation.”
Concerns still remain
However, pharmacy still has its concerns. Although pharmaceutical advisers
and pharmacist members of primary care trust professional executive
committees have been recognised as having a key role in the latest
pharmacy strategy document ‘A vision for pharmacy in the new
NHS’, more needs to be done. “We are aware that there are
pharmacists members of these committees in only about half of the PCTs
in England. Of course the situation is much happier in Wales and in
Scotland where pharmacist input is much more consistent,” said
the President. “We know that where pharmacist members are in
place they provide a valuable source of expertise. We would like to
see pharmacist members of the professional executive committees in
all PCTs.”
Another concern at a primary care level is that pharmaceutical advisers
are not getting enough support. “We would like reassurance that
training and support will be provided for these people to help them in
their difficult task of making the ‘vision’ a reality. In
particular, we would mention that few pharmacists have had access to
the excellent leadership training provided by the NHS Leadership Centre
in spite of reassurances in the past.”
The President also mentioned Government’s response to the Office
of Fair Trading report. “Unfortunately, as you are aware, the consensus
within pharmacy was that this latter package of measures was not as balanced
as might have been hoped,” she said.
Although the Society is not involved in matters relating to NHS dispensing
contracts, the President said she is concerned that the public has access
to a safe and effective quality pharmacy service. “The Society
would be concerned if any new development were to mean that people who
lived in certain less commercially attractive areas no longer had local
access to a pharmacist,” she warned. “The consultation document
does not provide the reassurance we seek that universal access to pharmacy
would not be damaged by the proposals as set out.”
She went on: “Community pharmacies are NHS health care premises
that are run as private sector businesses. For too long this seems to
have been considered as some sort of image problem. It has been allowed
to colour thinking and relationships in a way that is not helpful to
what we are all trying to achieve.” The President said that she
believes that in community pharmacy, the public benefits from a successful
public-private partnership. “Often the commercial element subsidises
the professional service. Community pharmacies are indeed commercial
enterprises but their activities are subject to statutory regulations
and they are required to operate according to a professional code of
ethics specifically to secure the public interest,” she stressed. “I
cannot see how community pharmacy can be thought of as just another business
sector. Let us not forget that pharmacies service patients as well as
consumers.”
Finally, pharmacy has concerns about the information technology agenda.
The President hopes that community pharmacies will be connected to the
NHSnet. “We accept that there are stakeholder issues to deal with.
What we don’t understand is the delay in tackling these issues
so that community pharmacy can become truly established as an integral
part of the NHS family.” She added: “We are concerned that
there is still no clarity on how community pharmacy is to be integrated
into the crucial new IT programmes that the NHS is currently investing
in,” she said. In particular, the President wants to know how pharmacy
will be included in the new integrated care record service.
However, the President concluded her address positively: “Pharmacy
wants to move forward on behalf of patients. Please give us the framework
to do so.” |
