New Council — new era
Congratulations to the newly elected members of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council! Of the 14 unreserved places, 13 have been won by declared supporters of the Save Our Society campaign. It is a major achievement. No doubt the losers — including two past presidents — will be wondering what went wrong for them and what reasons lie behind the fact that no long-serving members except Hemant Patel were successful in their bid to join the reconstituted Council.
Despite the fact that there were many more places up for grabs this year — pharmacists
were entitled to vote for the 14 unreserved places as well as one representing
their country of residence — the total number of members voting
dipped slightly (21.8 per cent of the Register voted compared with 22.8
per cent last year). Moreover, votes were spread more thinly. Not including
votes for home country representatives, a total of 93,256 votes were
cast (an average of 3,216 per vacancy) compared with 59,194 in 2004 (3,946
per vacancy). This suggests that this year the members of the Society
who decided to vote found it difficult to find 15 candidates whom they
wished to support. Exceptions were the SOS campaign’s sympathisers,
who were offered 13 names on the slate.
The unsuccessful candidates might wish to argue that this is not the
way to pick candidates: members of the Council represent the whole profession,
not just a faction. But, in the real world of pharmacy, that message
seems to have been rejected. In addition, SOS candidates rightly took
advantage of the relaxation of the rules on canvassing and were, for
example, assiduous in using the opportunity to send letters to The Journal
during the election period.
The question remains whether the result is good for the profession. It
is to be regretted, for example, that the SOS group was unable to field
a hospital clinical pharmacist or a primary care pharmacist. With the
exception of the current Treasurer, a former editor of The Journal, and
the representatives for Wales and Scotland, all the successful candidates
may be considered to have their hearts and minds in community pharmacy.
Time will tell how the new members cope with the fast-moving political
agenda: eight of them plus one academic pharmacist, 10 lay members and
two pharmacy technicians have no previous experience of the Council.
It is also of note that the combined years of experience of the new Council — 31
years — is five years less than those of Gill Hawksworth and Linda
Stone (who has served on the Council for nearly a quarter of a century).
In the new era these things may not matter but the newly elected Council
members must ensure that they consider the needs of all pharmacists and
that the divisive years are behind.
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