Views sought on Society and devolution
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Devolution
Review Group wants to know what pharmacists think about devolution
and how the Society should operate in the light of devolution. Its
consultation document, set out below, gives the background to the review
and poses six specific questions
Submission of evidence to the devolution review
Submissions should be made by e-mail to devolution@rpsgb.org
or in writing to Michele Savage, Project Manager, Devolution Review,
Royal Pharmaceutical
Society,
1 Lambeth High Street, London SE1 7JN by 20 November 2004.
A version of the consultation document can also be downloaded from the Society’s
website
A Welsh language version is also available. Mae fersiwn Cymraeg o'r ddogfen
ar gael.
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The Devolution Review
Group needs your views to help formulate its recommendations
to the Society’s Council. Please take the time to help to shape the Society’s
future.
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The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is the professional and regulatory
body for pharmacists in Great Britain. The Society is constituted under
its
Royal Charter. As a professional body, the Society seeks to lead and
develop the profession. As a regulator, the Society is responsible for
assuring the competence and fitness to practise of pharmacists, setting
standards for education and practice, guiding pharmacists towards excellence
and dealing with the small number who fall short of acceptable standards.
Members of the Society are those persons registered as pharmaceutical
chemists under the Pharmacy Act 1954. Under the Act, the Society maintains
the register of pharmacists and exercises professional discipline through
the Statutory Committee.
The Society combines its regulatory and professional functions within
a statutory enforcement role. It has law enforcement duties under the
Medicines Act 1968, the Animal Health and Welfare Act 1984 and the Poisons
Act 1972.
 The
Council is the governing body of the Society. The Council currently comprises
21 elected pharmacists and three lay members, appointed by
the Privy Council. In May 2002, the Council agreed that the Society should
retain its integrated regulatory and professional roles within a reformed
organisation, meeting modern regulatory requirements. Within this framework,
the Society’s principal duties would remain those of regulating,
developing and leading the profession of pharmacy firmly within the context
of the public benefit.
As part of its reform programme, the Society now needs to consider a
framework that will reflect devolution in Scotland and Wales, including
a review of function, structures and ways of working, and will include
the flexibility to extend to any future devolved administration in England.
The Society’s Council agreed that a review group should be established
to examine the issues surrounding devolution in more detail and report
back to the Council in early 2005 with its recommendations. The composition
of the review group is set out in Panel 1.
Panel 1: Membership of the Devolution Review Group
The members of the Council’s Devolution Review Group are
as follows:
· Lord Fraser of Carmyllie (chairman)
· Ann Lewis, Secretary and Registrar
· Mair Davies, chairman of the Welsh
Executive
· Digby Emson, member of Council
· Alison Ewing, member of Council
· Gill Hawksworth, immediate past President of the Society
· Maurice Hickey, member of Council
· Paul Jervis, constitutional expert
· Colin Ranshaw, member of the Welsh Executive
· Andrea Robinson, immediate past chairman of the Welsh Executive
· David Thomson, immediate past chairman of the Scottish Executive
· Angela Timoney, chairman of the Scottish Executive |
As an important part of the
review process, the Devolution Review Group wishes to consult the membership
and the pharmacy profession to ascertain
their views on devolution and how they would like to see the Society
operate in the light of devolution.
The Society derives its functions (powers and responsibilities) from
the Royal Charter and from legislation including the Pharmacy Act 1954,
the Poisons Act 1972 and the Medicines Act 1968. The key functions
of the Society can broadly be divided into 20 areas and it is helpful
for
this consultation document to outline them and give a brief example
of the type of activity that comes under each key function (see Panel
3,
below).
What do you think?
The review group would like your opinion on six questions, which are
set out in Panel 2 on p543).
Panel 2: The Devolution Review Group’s
questions
Question 1 In the light of devolution, how should the Society
relate to its members and the pharmacy profession in England, Scotland
and Wales, in its role:
· As the professional body for pharmacists?
· As regulator of the pharmacy profession?
· As the public voice of the pharmacy profession?
Question 2 Currently, policy is agreed by
Council with input from the Scottish Executive and the Welsh
Executive. One of the
main roles of the Scottish Executive and Welsh Executive is to
implement the Council’s policy.
How should policy be formulated for England, Scotland, Wales
and Great Britain?
Is it acceptable that the same Society policy is implemented
differently in England, Wales and Scotland in response to differing
national requirements?
Question 3 Is there a need to reflect the diversity of social
policy in England, Scotland and Wales in the education policy
of the Society? If so, how should this be done?
Question 4 Proposals for European legislation, and the way that
legislation is implemented may have different policy consequences
in England, Wales and Scotland. When addressing European issues
how should the Society ensure the views of England, Scotland
and Wales are appropriately represented?
Question 5 Should the role, remit and membership of the Scottish
Executive and Welsh Executive or their successors change to reflect
devolution? If so, in what way?
Question 6 As the Society operates at the moment all disciplinary
cases are heard in London. The policy objective has been to ensure
consistency in the enforcement of professional standards. It
has been suggested that cases should be heard close to where
they originate for either legal or language reasons. What would
be the disadvantages and advantages of hearing cases in the country
of origin? |
When addressing these questions it may be helpful to categorise the
Society’s
key functions as follows:
· Unitary Those functions that are better performed at a GB level
· Hybrid Functions that have elements that need to be performed at GB
level but have other elements that may be better carried out at national
level
· National Functions that are best performed at a national (English,
Scottish or Welsh) level
· Neutral Functions that could be performed either at GB or national
level
In answering these questions, the issue of implementation should be
addressed, having due regard to the Royal Charter and the obligations
placed on the Society by statute, and the provisions of the Scotland
Act 1998, and the Government of Wales Act 1998.
It would helpful to the group if all questions could be considered within
the context of suitability, feasibility and acceptability (Appendix A).
The Health Act 1999 contains important limitations on what changes may
be achieved through an Order under Section 60 of that Act. Those limitations
are summarised in Appendix B. Proposals which seek change beyond that
which might be accommodated within a Section 60 Order will require new
primary legislation.
All submissions will be considered by the Devolution Review Group, which
may request that further particulars of any submission be given either
in writing or by oral evidence.
Appendix A
· Suitability Does the proposed solution
meet the needs of the Society and its members?
· Feasibility Is the proposed solution
likely to work in practice and how difficult will it be to achieve?
· Acceptability Will the proposal be acceptable
to the Society’s
members and its other key stakeholders? Appendix B
An Order under Section 60 of the Health
Act 1999 may not abolish the Society, nor may it provide for the following
functions
to be exercised by any person other than
the Society or any of its committees or officers:
· Keeping the register of members admitted to practice
· Determining standards of education and training for admission to practice
· Giving advice about standards of conduct and performance
· Administering procedures (including making rules) relating to misconduct,
unfitness to practise and similar matter
Panel 3: The Society’s key functions,
with some examples of activities
1. Controlling entry to the profession
· Maintenance of registers of pharmacists and premises
2. Preregistration education
· Accreditation of degree courses
· Accreditation of preregistration training
· Administering and monitoring progression of trainees
3. Controlling registration
· Ensuring compliance with legislative requirements of pharmacists.
· Ensuring compliance with legislative requirements for registration
of premises
4. Training
· Standards for under graduate training
· Standards for training for technicians
5. Provide strategic leadership for the profession
· Creating vision and mission for the Society
· Identifying strategic objectives
· Policy formulation
6. Promote and represent the profession
· Talking to decision-makers and opinion-formers
· Fostering public awareness of the profession
· Responding to consultations
· Organising events
7. Setting and enforcing standards of practice
· Inspection
· Legal and ethical advisory service
· Production of high level principles
· Production of guidance and standards 8. Setting and enforcing educational standards
· Accrediting courses for supplementary prescribing
· Providing guidance and advice
9. Promoting good practice
· Providing guidance and advice on legal and ethical issues
· Quality assurance
10. Continuing professional development
· Systems for planning and monitoring CPD
· Providing guidance and advice
11 Assessing professional competence
12. Revalidation
· (Likely to be introduced in the future)
13. Providing support for improvement
· Supporting development through branch network
· Providing guidance and advice
14. Dealing with poor performance
· Acting as prosecuting authority
· Dealing with complaints
15. Removal from the register
· Statutory Committee 16. Advise government, other professions and the public
· Public affairs programme.
· Briefing key opinion formers
· Collaborative working with other
organisations.
17. Promote scholarship, research and the advance of knowledge
· Research studentship awards
· Providing library and information services
· Publishing professional and learned books and journals
18. Foster collaboration with other relevant
bodies
· Working with other professional and regulatory bodies
· Patient/public representative organisations
19. Promote pharmacy as a career
· Promoting and funding education
20. Provide a benevolent function for
members
· Listening Friends
· Pastoral care
· Benevolent Fund |
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal