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Letters to the Editor
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Registration fees
Fees rethink is urgently needed
From Mr D. L. Coleman, FRPharmS
The problem of registration fees goes on.
The situation with overseas pharmacists is one of which we should all
be ashamed. I, as a past president, certainly am. How can we charge
a full fee and require a full commitment to British continuing professional
development to people working in countries where the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society has no role in regulation or representation and where the British
CPD requirements are unsuitable?
There are many pharmacists around the world, some in wealthier countries,
some in the developing world, who in the past looked to the Society as
a source of information and of inspiration of a body where they could
compare practice in their countries with practice and development in
the Britain. By understanding practice in other countries we all learn
from each other and the service we provide benefits. We now seem to have
decided that unless the pharmacists are “non-practising” and
sign an undertaking to that effect then we are no longer interested in
them because of the hurdles we place in their way.
The same rethink is urgently needed (not next year, next month at the
latest) to cover retired pharmacists. The fees they are being charged
and the declaration they are asked to make in effect cuts them off from
their years of professional experience. I believe that part-time pharmacists’ needs
also require to be addressed in connection with both fees and more importantly
CPD (or perhaps continuing education) requirements. The loss of these
pharmacists is already causing stress and problems for their full-time
colleagues and weakening the service we provide.
I have to believe that the issues I have mentioned will be acted on and
wrongly made decisions reversed. In the light of that I trust that a
record is being kept of all those members who have left the Register
in order that they can be invited to rejoin.
David Coleman
Dilham, Norfolk
Loss of tax benefit for non-practising pharmacists
From J. A. C. Waller, MRPharmS
I wonder how many other retired pharmacists who decided to pay the non-practising
fee to remain on the Register have realised that the amount of payment
is actually higher than £46?
When I went from paying a part-time fee to paying a retirement fee my Inspector
of Taxes made it clear that since I was not working I could not claim the
fee against taxable income. Now that the retirement fee which was relatively
small is no more I am informed that this ruling will apply to the non-practising
fee and thus the cost for this year is around £60, before tax reduces
it to the £46 paid to the Society. Next year when the fee is raised
this will be even greater than the figure requested by the Society.
I am sure that I am not the only non-practising pharmacist who is liable
for tax on his present income and I am surprised this was not thought about
when decisions on fee structure were made.
J. A. C. Waller
Exeter |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal