Past presidents bow out with advice to new Council
Three past presidents of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society — Linda Stone (1990–91), Christine Glover (1999–2001) and Gill Hawksworth (2003–04) — have bowed out from the Council with words of advice for their successors. Mrs Stone and Dr Hawksworth were unsuccessful
in the election to the new Council and Mrs Glover had chosen not to seek
election.
Exciting future
On 6 April, at the last full meeting of the 2003–04 Council, Mrs
Glover said it had been a great privilege and honour to serve on the
Council for 14 years. It had taken many of those years to get pharmacy
on the political agenda and get strategic plans for pharmacy in each
of the home countries. Professionally pharmacy had never looked more
exciting. “Clinical skills, medicines management, pharmaceutical
care and prescribing — this is what pharmacy is all about. … The grind of being tied to the pharmacy bench dispensing ridiculous
numbers of prescriptions per hour must go.”
Mrs Glover said that the desire to lock everything inside a competency-based
framework should be resisted. If professionalism was thrown out, patients
would suffer and pharmacists would be reduced to technicians. The Council’s
main task was to take the profession to where it could survive and prosper.
That was leadership. An effective leader earned respect and trust but
not popularity.
“
Leadership is closely comparable to parenthood,” she said. “A
good parent supports, sets a good example and, where necessary, disciplines
a child. If the parent is successful, then the child grows into an accomplished
and effective citizen with the right value set and a sense of duty and
purpose. This is exactly what leaders must do for the profession.”
The past decade had seen a steady assault on all professions. A huge
machine was grinding pharmacy’s way, and Council members had to
explain to the members why everything had changed and would continue
to change. The chief medical officer’s report on the doctors and
Andrew Foster’s report on other health professions would have tremendous
repercussions, and the new Council had to be ready.
Whenever things had gone wrong during her time on the Council, it was
almost always down to poor communication. Increasing the fees and introducing
mandatory continuing professional development were done to ensure that
pharmacy was fit enough to stay around. Without making the necessary
changes, pharmacy would cease to exist.
The fees had had to go up, but there was a need to review how they were
levied and what the categories were. Disenfranchising pharmacists with
a lifetime of service was the wrong way for a profession to behave. And
it was ridiculous that someone with a lifetime’s experience could
not comment on a medical situation while those who knew nothing about
medicine were free to give a view. She therefore hoped that the new Council
would review the registration categories soon.
Mrs Glover said that Council members should put the needs of the profession
before their own. Sadly this was not always so. The Council’s corporate
responsibility was set out in the Council Governance Handbook, which
she hoped would be her lasting legacy. Evolving around the best Nolan
and Turnbull principles, it had improved ways of working, making dealings
more transparent. Even so, it could not cover all eventualities. Some
Council members past and present had not always behaved correctly. Not
only did they harm themselves and lose their colleagues’ respect
but, more importantly, they harmed all 45,000 members of the profession.
Life would never be the same after June, but the Council’s larger
lay input would
make it more outward looking and less self-protective. She reminded those
members who continued on to the new Council that they were there to ensure
that the profession acted in the public’s best interest. “You
are not here to promote your own self-interest, or that of the members.
That may be a contentious statement, but it needs saying and I am giving
you notice that I shall be holding you to it publicly.”
Mrs Glover urged those who were to become part of the new Council to
work with the staff and to act with the highest integrity for the whole
of the profession. She would then be confident that the profession will
be secure for the next 50 years. Cost of recent events
Addressing the special Council meeting on 24 May, Dr Hawksworth, immediate
past president, said that she asked the profession to reflect on the
true cost of the events of the past two years with regard to the Society’s
long-term future.
She said it had been a privilege, pleasure and honour to serve the
profession. As an officer for the past four years, she had upheld the
honour of office
and fulfilled her duty as an officer in terms of corporate governance.
She left the Council with her personal integrity intact, knowing that
she had served with several outstanding and brave colleagues who had
fought to preserve self-regulation for the profession.
To be a leader, she said, one has to be prepared to be unpopular. Popularity
did not always fit comfortably alongside doing the right thing and making
evidence-based decisions. Communicating the reasoning behind decisions
was key, but sometimes no one wanted to hear the reasons, especially
if others put an alternative view that people wanted to hear.
What had she and her brave colleagues left to the profession as their
legacy? She believed they exhibited the key elements of success that
had enabled the profession to develop at an unprecedented pace over the
past few years: leadership, creating a Society with the best chance of
a sustainable future post-Kennedy; knowledge, combined from all areas
of the profession and giving power to act in the best interests of the
membership and external stakeholders; perseverance, holding on to their
convictions and sustaining their effort in difficult circumstances; strength,
derived from wisdom, commitment and momentum over a difficult period;
and celebration, appreciating their achievements and moving quietly on.
The professional success and achievements of those individuals arose
from their personal qualities. “The qualities exhibited were a
clear sense of self, a desire to achieve excellence, a positive outlook
focused on opportunities and outcome, an extraordinary will and a capacity
to share their insights, wisdom and skill with others, the capacity to
balance transactional work with transformational work and an apparently
infinite capacity for innovation.”
The profession had benefited from the significant achievements of those
individuals, she said. Many had brought honour to the profession in various
ways and the profession owed them a debt. The new Council had much work
to do. She knew how complex were the issues and how much had to be achieved,
and she wished them wisdom in their endeavour.
Concluding, she said that she would continue to serve her profession
with integrity and with a clear conscience. Development of standards
Also at the 24 May meeting, Mrs Stone said that it had been a privilege
and an honour to serve a profession that she still cared for as passionately
as on the day she registered. During her Council service she had seen
tremendous changes in pharmacy, in health care, in practice, in education
and in the way the Society operated. The common theme was the development
of standards, which had improved enormously. Decisions 20 years ago
had been based largely on trust. Now decisions had to be based on evidence,
delivered with reasons in a consistent, transparent and robust way.
Standards ensured that new pharmacists were well equipped to practise.
Standards were supported professional developments aided improvements
in practice. Standards helped demonstrate a commitment to maintaining
competence and fitness to practise. Above all, standards supported the
public’s trust in, and the benefit they received from, pharmacists,
while simultaneously providing a framework for the profession.
Emphasising that high standards are needed at all times in public life,
including Council service, Mrs Stone said: “The past two years
have been cataclysmic for our profession. People do not always agree
with one another. Debate and challenge of ideas are healthy and ensure
that an organisation does not stagnate. But a sign of maturity is when
individuals can agree to disagree. Many people have striven honestly
and sincerely to achieve the best possible outcomes for our profession.
It has saddened me to see that criticisms have become unnecessarily personal.
Only time will tell whether the schisms so created can be healed without
permanent damage.”
If the Society is to survive as an independent, autonomous body that
both leads and regulates the profession, the new Council has to demonstrate
the highest possible standard, she said.
She added: “Real leadership is not easy.
It does not make you popular. Behaving properly with governance and probity
is not popular, but it is vital. It is not an option.
“New members of Council will have a tremendous learning curve, not
just to appreciate the enormous breadth and diversity of roles and responsibilities,
but also to ensure that they have the requisite skills to understand
these roles. They must not underestimate the task.
“The new Council must demonstrate it has the vision and clarity of
thought to create opportunities, the wisdom to recognise risks and the
ability
to behave with governance in all that it does. The lay members will bring
a breadth and depth of experience and knowledge to the new Council that
I welcome. I hope that the elected members will be sufficiently astute
to learn from them.”
Concluding, Mrs Stone said: “Nobody should underestimate the challenges
that will face pharmacy — challenges that will shape practice and
our autonomy as a profession for many years to come. The external pressures
from Government and other stakeholders will not go away. The risks and
threats are enormous, but the opportunities are there. I trust that the
new Council will have the courage to grasp the opportunities and continue
to develop. I wish the new Council members and the new Council well in
their endeavours.” Tributes to Society’s staff
All three past presidents paid tributes to the Society’s staff.
Mrs Glover described them as “an amazing group of people with a
wide range of skills, who are doing their utmost to ensure the survival
of pharmacy”.
Dr Hawksworth said that the staff had worked hard over a difficult period
to maintain stability and progress, especially the Secretary and Registrar
and the directors. Mrs Stone said that she was privileged to have worked
with some dedicated Society employees who worked behind the scenes to
progress pharmacy. She thanked them for their friendship, support and
unswerving loyalty to the profession. She also thanked the lay Council
members who over many years had unselfishly given their wisdom and expertise. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal