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Letters to the Editor
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The Journal
The Journal should publish a broader picture of Council
From Ms E. A. Mishon, MRPharmS
I write in response to Alan
Nathan’s letter (PJ, 15 November, p676).
Mr Nathan says: “Members get the opportunity each year to vote
for the Council, and it must be assumed that those elected are those
that the pharmaceutical electorate believe will best represent their
interests.” I do not believe that this is necessarily always true.
Feeling under an obligation to vote, in the past, I have done so without
any real understanding for whom I was voting because the statements from
the
candidates published in The Pharmaceutical Journal appear indistinguishable.
I have therefore voted, first, for women, secondly, for any Council member
who had already served at least one term (must be good), thirdly, for
independent community pharmacists and, lastly, for locums.
This is not an acceptable way to appoint our professional representatives,
however there was no choice. Due to my own lack of knowledge therefore,
I have voted for members who did not reflect my interests. I can only
go on what I read in The Journal. This year was better, we had
Save Our Society candidates (Nicholas
Wood, PJ, 22 November, p712).
Next year the electorate could be even better informed. The Journal could
publish, verbatim, the minutes of Council meetings. The members then
could have a much better appreciation of existing members’ views,
Privy Council nominee input, voting figures and contributions by senior
staff at Lambeth.
Concerning modernisation and the revised Charter debate, the electorate
could be helped to make up their minds better still. The Journal could,
for every explanation given by the pro-modernisers, invite an article
of equal and opposite opinion. Those members who chose to respond to
the consultation documents could then have done so with greater confidence.
If The Journal adopted a policy of publishing a broader picture of the
Council and its activities, Marcus Longley, the independent consultant,
working with the modernisation steering group, who wrote the article “Views
on the draft Royal Charter: a report on the consultation” (PJ,
13 September, pp349–51), would have been able to change his final
remarks.
He said: “... there was an observable lack of trust in the Council
. ... This was closely related to criticisms about past performance
as a body for professional representation and a belief that the Council,
and the Society’s senior staff, might be pursuing hidden agendas.”
Anne Mishon
Laurac le Grand,
France |
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