The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 273 No 7325 p713-714
13 November 2004

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Letters to the Editor

The Society

Society needs to re-engage its members

From Mr D. J. Livingstone, MRPharmS

The current retention fees debate is merely symptomatic of a much greater problem, which the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s President and Council need to address urgently — the general disaffection of the membership. Having been registered for over 20 years, I have seen over the past five years a steady and disturbing change in the attitude of the Society to its members, to the point that many long-standing members feel alienated from the organisation and new recruits are rapidly disillusioned since they feel that they are merely a further source of funding for the Society.

My spirits were briefly lifted a couple of weeks ago when an advertisement appeared for “Head of quality improvement” at the Society. Alas, the postholder is to monitor the activities of the membership, not the Society. The Society must be more open to scrutiny by, and receptive to criticism by, its membership if it is to prosper. As a first step to re-engaging the membership may I suggest that the President urgently looks at cost issues at the Society, such as the necessity of regular purchase by the library of books few are likely to read, and provision of private health care for some Society staff.

Tony Blair famously declared that the new Labour Government had “24 hours to save the NHS”. The Society may have life yet, but at the moment it is appears to be rejecting its own life-blood — the membership. Pharmacy is a great profession and as yet I do not regret my career choice, but I am beginning to have my doubts. It is time the Council and the Society employees alike grasped the issues that affect grass-roots pharmacists and acted as their advocates, rather than giving thin excuses for inaction and the impression of working to an alternative, self-serving agenda.


Duncan Livingstone
North Lancing, West Sussex

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