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Letters to the Editor
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Council election
Who will represent NHS employees?
From Mrs S. C. Carter MRPharmS
I note with interest the details of the 30 candidates who are standing
for election in this year’s election to Council of the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society. The details spoke of pharmacists with various years of experience,
from different areas of Britain, and all no doubt in possession of great
enthusiasm and dedication to the field of pharmacy in which they practise.
I expect that when I have read the more complete details in the election
booklet, the passion and integrity that each person brings to their candidacy
will be evident. Yet, I still read through the details with a sinking heart,
because two major fields of pharmacy practice are barely represented.
As a pharmacist employed within the NHS in a primary care trust, I feel
totally disenfranchised by this election, and concerned for the ability
of any future Council truly to understand and take forward the issues affecting
a large number of Society members. Ironically, I suspect that the reason
no other candidates have come forward from hospital or primary care backgrounds
is that current workload and work pressures as an NHS employee are unprecedented
in their breadth and depth of complexity, and health care professionals
with such challenges as part of their daily jobs may think twice before
asking employers and families to support the additional time commitment
involved in being an active Council member. Yet these are the very times
when we NHS employees need the leaders of our profession to understand
our issues and workstreams, to understand intricacies of managing health
service change and service improvement, and to support the crucial role
many of us have in primary care contracting, not least implementing the
new community pharmacy contract.
Who is going to be able to speak for me and my fellow NHS employees when
at best a disproportionately small number on the Council will understand
a small number of the professional issues relevant to me, and at worst
no Council member will understand or even know about any of my professional
issues or viewpoints at all? Surely the time has come to grasp the nettle
of appropriate Council representation across our whole profession, and
it is my sincere hope that the future Council members in whom I must place
my trust will equally recognise that the current situation must not be
allowed to continue.
Sue Carter
Head of Prescribing and Pharmacy,
Adur, Arun and Worthing Teaching Primary Care Trust |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal