ROBERT DARRACOTT, Director of Corporate and Strategic Development, Royal Pharmaceutical Society, replies:

The Society does have a formal complaints procedure. It was launched on 2 June 2003 (PJ, 31 May 2003, p771) as part of its new customer service programme. This procedure formed part of the Society’s commitment to improve the quality of its services. It provided a means by which problems over issues such as standards of service delivery can be logged, addressed and a response guaranteed within 10 working days. The ones dealt with so far have helped alert us to problems with some of our processes and then enabled us to make any necessary changes to these. The procedure is detailed on the Society’s website and complaints can be sent by post to the complaints office at Lambeth or by e-mail to complaintsagainstsociety@rpsgb.org.

It is worth pointing out that specific problems such as this are best directed initially to the relevant section, in this case the registration section on 020 7572 2322 (e-mail registration@rpsgb.org).

The registration section does indeed have a set of service standards that it aims to meet on a day-to-day basis, including standards for staffing, telephone answering and responding to appropriately addressed voicemails, e-mail and queries in the post. For example, the registration section aims to return voicemails within 24 hours Monday to Friday and on the first working day after a weekend or a Bank Holiday. During the peak period of the retention cycle it is inevitable that these standards represent a challenge to staff, particularly when new systems are being implemented, but there has been considerable progress made this year, due in no small part to the work of the registration team. There are still some difficulties to be resolved when contact is made through other channels, and we are looking at how incoming calls might be managed more effectively to ensure that calls and queries are routed through to the appropriate person as quickly as possible.