| Over the past two years, pharmacy has been absorbed in a heated debate
over the future
of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and
its Charter. Only a month ago it seemed
unlikely that a conclusion that would satisfy all sides would ever be
reached. But that is
exactly what appears to have happened. What the Council of the Society — and
that
includes those elected on a Save Our Society ticket — is telling
pharmacists now is to join together and vote to accept this draft of
the Charter.
It is clear that the Society views this draft as the final one and that
members are being asked to give a yes/no answer; it is not another consultation. “This
is our last chance: I don’t believe there can be any more changes,” says
the Society’s President Nicholas Wood. “I have to stress
that if there is a ‘no’ vote, we would be back to square
one and the Charter would effectively be overridden by new
legislation.”
The changes to the draft Charter are described in an article in this
week’s Journal (see p95) and the draft Charter itself is published
in a pull-out section. The President comments: “The changes are
significant for members but they are not ones that the Privy Council
will regard as so significant that they will have a problem accepting
them.”
The changes to the draft Charter have not just come from the Council:
the Privy Council on behalf of the health departments has also made a
number of changes to the December draft. One such change is a new requirement
for one member of Council to be a pharmacist from academia. “I
am pleased with that suggestion, it reflects the importance of education
in the Society,” comments Mr Wood. Another Privy Council requirement
that might cause some concern— although not for Mr Wood — is around changes to Byelaws (see Article
10 of the Charter). It requires that changes must be
approved by the Privy Council. “Although there was some concern
that this was more restrictive on the Society and there were differing
views, I felt that as a check and balance I was not unhappy with this,” says
Mr Wood.
Council decisions
The latest draft Charter was agreed at a special
Council meeting a
couple of weeks ago (PJ, 10 July, p67). All those Council members present
except one — Sultan Dajani — voted in favour of the new
draft. Of the two members who were unable to attend, one, Bob Michell,
was reported to have wished to support the proposal. The other, Martin
Astbury, says that he would have voted in favour. “As an independent
member of Council — I am not an SOS campaigner — I am happy
that both sides appear to have come to an agreement that best serves
the members.” He says that the revised draft Charter appeared
to be the best one that the Council was able to achieve. “This
does not mean that it is necessarily the best Charter in the world,” he
adds. “It is a different Charter to the December draft and I
feel that the amendments are
necessary.” He says that he is delighted that a
ballot is to be held since he supported the call for a referendum on
the Charter last December. “I thought that morally the then Council
acted badly by not holding a referendum over such an important issue,” he
says.
So why did Mr Dajani abstain? “First, I wanted a final consultation
with members. Their views should have been taken on
board before going for the yes/no ballot,” he
explains. “Second, I was concerned that the
section relating to the Benevolent Fund was demoted from an object to
a power. I am both pro-representation and pro-regulation and felt that
having the Benevolent Fund as a power was tipping the balance away from
the dual role to a more regulatory organisation.”
His third reason relates to the word “regulation” being used
in Object 3. “If, in the future, the Government decided to take
self-regulation away from pharmacy then having the word ‘regulation’ in
the Objects could result in the Government over-riding the entire Charter
because it cannot exist without its Objects. If the Object was a statement
of purpose about protecting the public and the word ‘regulation’ was
in a power then this power could be removed and the rest of the Charter
could be
retained,” he explains.
However, Mr Dajani is still supporting the drive to get members to vote
in favour of the new Charter. “The SOS campaign has succeeded in
achieving subtle but fundamental changes. I still have concerns but it
has moved in the right direction so I encourage members to vote ‘yes’,” he
says.
Hemant Patel, Vice-President of the Society, is also supporting the new
draft Charter. “The Society was founded as a membership organisation
to represent all sectors of the profession. On the other hand, the Government
is keen that health care professionals are regulated to ensure the NHS
delivers a quality agenda. So we have got a dual role in terms of representing
pharmacists and ensuring pharmacists are able to self-regulate. Therefore
a compromise had to be reached within the timescale we had,” he
says.
Mr Patel highlights the fact that members now have the right to monitor
the Council more closely than in the past. He still has some concerns
over how the regulatory function of the Society is funded which he hopes
will be addressed in the future. But he comments: “I think there
are enough safeguards to ensure the assets are protected for the use
of members in the future.”
In June, one of the Council members nominated by the Privy Council, Michael
Schofield, temporarily resigned because he was concerned about the
Society’s
future
direction following the change in President (PJ, 12 June, p749).
But this week he confirmed his support for the new draft Charter. “Yes,
I am happy with it. I am pleased that this stage has been finally reached,” he
says.
And Immediate Past President Gill Hawksworth says: “Please support
the Charter to ensure the future of the profession.”
Now agreement has been reached, is the SOS campaign over?
Those members of Council who stood for election on an SOS ticket
are all supporting the new draft Charter. So does this mean that
its campaign is over?
The President, Nicholas Wood, was elected on an SOS ticket. “I
don’t know whether the other people will feel that the campaign
is over,” he says. “When I was elected a year ago, I
had concerns so was prepared to be associated with the SOS campaign.
It was a campaign of concerns. For me, with the new version of the
Charter, all the concerns I had have been addressed, provided we
get the ‘yes’ vote.”
John Jolley, Treasurer and another SOS Council member, says: “The
campaign was one of reform and establishing the rights of the membership.
To that end, the Charter we now have meets the issues raised by the
membership. But there will always be issues to safeguard the future
success of the profession.” He adds: “I don’t see
it as being as complete as Nick does. What we now have to deliver
is the reforms that have been requested by the membership; many of
these reforms extend beyond the provisions of the Charter.”
There is a common theme in all these responses. In fact, The
Journal spoke to all of the SOS Council members bar one (who is not in the
UK this week) and they all said exactly the same thing: the SOS campaign
is about looking after members’ interests and that this does
not stop with the Charter.
“The SOS campaign is just a group of like-minded people who have the
welfare of the Society and members at heart,” explains Doug
Simpson. “We will continue to work on this basis. Those members
of Council who were elected on an SOS ticket have played a full part
in the range of the Society’s activities in the past year.”
Graham Phillips adds that setting up a membership committee is high
on his agenda. “We need to make sure that we make the Society
more relevant to members,” he says. There will continue to
be an SOS agenda, but there will not be an SOS approach to all issues,
he comments. |
|
The
Pharmaceutical Journal