Everyone a winner?
After much soul-searching and grappling with grammar, last week the Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society came up with a form of words for the third Object of the revised draft Charter designed to satisfy the overwhelming majority of members. The deliberations started informally on Monday, 1 December when the Council considered members' comments on the revised draft Charter (PJ, 18 October) PDF (100K).
A majority of Council members (including those representing the Save
Our Society group) seemed in favour of the following third object: “To
safeguard, maintain the honour, and promote the effectiveness of the
profession of pharmacy and the interests of pharmacists in the exercise
of their profession.” Overnight, however, this was revealed to
be grammatically incorrect and unlikely to be acceptable to the Privy
Council so the Officers produced a further form of words. But these were
no more acceptable. It was not an auspicious start to the Council meeting,
which was attended by all members and was, arguably, the most important
meeting for years because a decision was to be taken whether or not to
accept the new Charter (p819).
Clive Jackson then produced a neater version: “To safeguard, maintain
the honour, and promote the effectiveness of the profession of pharmacy
and to support the professional interests of pharmacists.” This
answers the criticisms that have been laid at the feet of the modernisers:
that the sense of the third Object from the 1953 Charter must be preserved,
that the members of the Society (ie, pharmacists) and their interests
should be spelt out in the Objects. The Jackson form of words also satisfied
those who have objected to the phrase “interests of pharmacists” as
it seemed to them to be more of a reference to the historical sectoral
interests of some community pharmacists rather than to be embracing all
pharmacists.
The Jackson words were put to the vote and accepted — except by
those members supporting the SOS view. Why? The Jackson form of words
could arguably be seen as something of a victory for the SOS group. When
the first draft of the new Charter was published in March, the interests
of the members were completely excluded from the Objects (PJ, 22 March) PDF (165K).
Even after the consultation and the special general meeting in June,
the revised draft Charter left out the members (ie, pharmacists) from
the Objects and rolled them up in the phrase “profession of pharmacy”.
In an ideal world, the Council would have had much more time to develop
the new Charter, as it did before the 1953 Charter was granted (see p810).
But the post-war political climate was different: governing bodies were
left much more to their own devices. The SOS group, which is dismayed
by the process by which the Charter has been produced, is now expected
to counter-petition the Privy Council. At one level this move fails to
acknowledge the group’s successes as outlined above.
The question of approval by the membership still hangs in the balance.
The Privy Council will shortly start a six-week consultation period on
the Charter, so there is still a chance to put some mechanism in place
to seek broad acceptance of the final draft. It could preserve the unity
of the profession and allow pharmacists to start looking forward together.
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