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Modernisation
Rushed headlong into new Charter
From Mr M. A. Reynolds, MRPharmS
As a community pharmacist who attended the special general meeting
in June and a Charter roadshow, I am wondering where our Royal Pharmaceutical
Society is heading, given the reporting within the PJ and beyond.
I am firmly against our Society becoming a totally regulatory body. For
many years it has been a successful professional membership Society with
a department within it being granted the powers of overseeing regulation.
I am proud to be associated with this success. To update the Charter
is laudable, I have no problem with that. However, many eminent pharmacists,
including past presidents, are questioning the current course of action
of the Council. Their understandable nervousness appears to have been
dismissed out of hand. There surely has to be a sensible debate.
It has been stated that membership is compulsory. This is so for community
pharmacists; however the Society is comprised of more than just community
pharmacists is it not?
It appears to me that this “modernising” Council want all
pharmacist members to behave as if we are simply employees and to do
as we are told — Council knows best.
I am not a lawyer but Section 60 (to which the Council
constantly alludes) is totally unreasonable. This particular Government
has granted itself complete powers enabling the Secretary of State to
dictate any “order”, however good, bad or indifferent, without
reference to anyone. There is no reason why a proper judicial review
should not be sought to examine this. Why is the Council reacting the
way it is? To date, the Department of Health has not yet issued any order
under this section.
It looks as if the Council has rushed headlong, under pressure of its
own making, into petitioning the Privy Council without the general consent
of the membership. There is also a real possibility of others within
the Council contemplating petitioning the Privy Council with totally
opposing views — there surely will be dire consequences. All I
can do as a lone pharmacist is watch sadly from the sidelines.
Michael Reynolds
Christchurch, Dorset
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ANN LEWIS, Secretary and Registrar, Royal Pharmaceutical Society,
replies:
It may be helpful to set out a few facts. First, the Council
has confirmed not only that the Society should retain its professional
and regulatory roles but that it should be equally effective at
both. If the Council had not been determined to retain the Society’s
key professional functions, it would not have sought a new Charter — it
would have been content to see the current Charter over-written
by legislation. This, as events have shown, is far from being the
case.
Secondly, the Society’s regulatory powers are vested in the Council, which
is accountable for all the Society’s functions — professional and
regulatory. It has never been true that these powers were granted to one department
of the Society.
Thirdly, only members of the Society may call themselves pharmacists and gain
the rights and responsibilities that come with this status. Many employers
value the benefits this brings to them and therefore choose to employ pharmacists,
whether or not this is a legal obligation.
Fourthly, section 60 orders under the Health Act are made in accordance with
the wishes of Parliament, not as the Secretary of State dictates. It is far
from true that no such orders have yet been made. In fact, the Society will
be one
of the last of the health professions to have its legislation brought up to
date through the section 60 provisions.
I applaud your correspondent’s recognition of the value of having an up-to-date
Charter. The Council’s purpose in petitioning the Privy Council at this
time is to ensure that the Government will prepare its section 60 order in the
clear knowledge of the Council’s wishes for both the legislation and
the Charter. In doing this, the Council has again demonstrated its commitment
to
the Society as a strong and credible professional and regulatory body, serving
the public and the profession well into the future. |
I've started so I’ll finish ...
From Mr A. R. White, MRPharmS
I was (initially) delighted to find that my
first letter to The Journal was not only published but had been considered of sufficient merit to
receive a response. Unfortunately this pleasure was immediately replaced
by annoyance. Once again the response only masqueraded as a reply. It
did not answer the one single question that I had asked. How does the “new” Charter
provide the claimed “proper balance between the Society’s
regulatory and professional roles”?
I would like to comment, briefly, on the response. I do not receive “press
releases” (I read The Journal); I attended two roadshows (one partly
led by Marcus Longley) and at neither of them was it explained how the
two roles would be balanced. Indeed, in trying to show how it might be
addressed, Mr Longley actually used some of the detail now shown in his
November articles.
However, the most telling part of the response was the reference to imposition
by the Government. This, at least in my mind, quite clearly shows the
intention of the new Charter. It is to reverse the current role of the
Society from a body for professional pharmacists, which took on an additional
regulatory power, to that of a modern regulator (for the Government),
which may be able to represent the professional requirements of pharmacists,
if the Government allows it to.
Now I have started, I feel bound to finish. I appreciate that some may
claim that it is now too late. If so, that is surely the fault of the
majority of Council members, who appear to have been so blinkered by
their own sense of intelligence and power to have not even considered
alternative options. So here is my “innovative approach”,
which I believe may even surpass that of Clive Jackson (PJ, 12 July,
p68), PDF (90K).
By all means create a totally new body for pharmacy, which is what this
new Charter does, but call it the Pharmacy Regulation Council (or any
title acceptable to Government) and have it constituted as required.
But, and this is my innovation, let the Society oversee its creation
and require the body to appoint the Society as its agent initially. This
way there will be separation of responsibility but those aspects of joint
concern will be dealt with in an efficient, effective and coherent way,
as required by the Council.
This separation could solve other problems created by the current Council
proposals. The Society would remain the representative body for pharmacists,
all pharmacists will be able to keep their title and the assets of the
Society would stay with it. This would avoid the problem of titles for
retired or non-practising pharmacists that the current proposals have
encountered.
The Pharmacy Regulation Council would be in charge of regulating anyone
working within pharmaceutical services and would be self-funded from
registration fees. It could require a pharmacist to be a member of the
Society, in order to be eligible for registration, or a technician to
be a member of an equivalent body.
The Society, as the existing Chartered body, would provide the professional
leadership and development of pharmacists and the Council would register
pharmacists and ensure their fitness to practise. If, as suggested by
some, we find joint representation does not work, then the Society can
withdraw from it. We will be no worse off than the medical and dental
professions and, at least, we would have tried to continue our dual role.
Finally, while I understand that any professional body should ensure
that its members act “professionally”, and that this could
be understood as not acting against the public interest, I still fail
to grasp why this needs to be stated. Could someone explain why this
phrase should be included in our Charter?
Alan White
Gravesend, Kent
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ANN LEWIS, Secretary and Registrar, Royal Pharmaceutical Society,
replies:
The new Charter is vital to ensuring the right balance
between regulation and the Society’s professional leadership
and development functions. In my view, this balance is apparent
from the Charter
objects agreed by the Council. Perhaps I may pose a question to
Mr White: is there anything that the Society does now that it could
not do under the new Charter? I believe the answer is no.
Mr White suggests that it might be worth giving up regulation to
allow the Society to concentrate on representation. Certainly,
for anyone who did not accept that
the Society acts for the public benefit, the only true alternative would be
for the Society to give up its statutory role and its Charter and
become a private,
voluntary organisation to promote the interests of pharmacists on an exclusive
basis. The regulatory role would then, in all probability, be undertaken by
the Health Professions Council (HPC).
However, the Council has recognised that the Society’s position as the
regulatory and professional body for pharmacy gives it strength and credibility.
For a profession of its size, pharmacy punches above its weight. If the Society
became simply a professional body, pharmacists would be in a similar position
to physiotherapists: a profession of broadly similar size, regulated by the
HPC and having a separate professional body. However, physiotherapists would
not
seem to be in a stronger position to influence policy. There are three Government
chief pharmacists in Great Britain, well placed to ensure that pharmacy remains
on the national agenda. There are no chief physiotherapists in a similar position,
or national physiotherapy strategies in England, Scotland and Wales.
As the Privy Council website makes clear, Charters are now only granted in
the public interest. It is appropriate that the Charter should reflect the
context
in which the Society operates. I feel sure that most pharmacists will recognise
that the cost of even suggesting that the Society might reserve the right to
act against the public interest cannot be borne — that the damage inflicted
on the trust and credibility that pharmacy has gained with the public, with
our professional colleagues and with Parliament would be simply too high a
price
to pay. |
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