Mixed reaction to Council election victory of all SOS candidates
Pharmacists have been reacting this week to the election of all seven Save Our Society campaign candidates to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Council (PJ, 22 May, p629).
Ash Soni, chairman of the National Pharmaceutical Association, said: “It
seems to indicate that there is a sense of disillusionment with the previous
Council. It is a demonstration of democracy at work.” Mr Soni said
that the perception was that people had raised their concerns with the
Society and that it had then decided to discount them.
David Sharpe, a past-president of the Society, described the 59.7 per
cent of votes cast for SOS candidates as “fairly substantial by
any standard”. He said: “As I understand it, the Council
has a majority of 13 SOS supporters and sympathisers. One can only presume
that there will be some radical changes in the conduct of the Council
in future.”
However, Mr Sharpe raised concerns over how the victory was achieved: “This
could be a worrying feature of future elections if groups of candidates
get together and brand themselves.”
None of the newly elected Council members is from the hospital sector.
Tony West, chief pharmacist at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital,
London, said: “It means that the Council is now unrepresentative
of the profession as a whole.” In relation to modernisation of
the Society he said: “This puts us back to square one. We need
to move forward as a profession and this isn’t going to help.” He
added that both the regulatory and professional roles of the Society
are now at risk.
The SOS campaign is organising seven candidates to stand in next year’s
election. |
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