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Have your say …
Individuals and organisations can send comments direct to the
Department of Health on any issues raised in the draft Order. The
consultation closes on 19 June. Comments can also be sent to the
Royal Pharmaceutical Society in order to inform its response to
the consultation. These comments should arrive by 4 May.
The format and addresses to which comments should be sent are detailed
in the four-page pull-out section on the Section 60 Order, published
in The Journal of 1 April
PDF (70K)
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Should the link between registration as a pharmacist and membership
of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society be removed? This is the question
that
the Department of Health is asking in its public
consultation on the
draft Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians Order under Section 60 of
the Health Act 1999 (PJ, 1 April, p371).
The consultation document states: “The main aim of the Section
60 Order is to enhance public protection. It has been argued that the
membership/registration link, currently in the Pharmacy Act, does not
contribute towards that aim. Respondents’ views are sought, therefore,
on whether the proposed article should be deleted.”
The Society is determined to fight any suggestion that this link should
be removed. “We do not know why this suggestion has been raised,” says
Christine Gray, head of corporate governance at the Society. “We
have been given no argument why membership and registration should be
separated and the Council believes strongly that reference to the link
in the draft Order should be retained.”
The 2004 Charter also specifically links registration with membership
and this, too, would need to be amended for the link to be lost completely.
Why, then, does the Society feel so strongly that the article should
remain within the new legislation?
“It could be argued that removing the link in the Order will not
make a difference. However, the Council prefers to have the extra reassurance
that explicit mention in the statute brings,” says Ms Gray. Legislation
would always take precedence should there be a conflict between legislation
and a Charter, she adds. In theory, a future Council could request an
amendment to the Charter that would result in the link being lost. If
the link is spelt out in the statute, this could only be changed in Parliament.
Confusion
Retaining the link between registration and membership is important
for several reasons, says Ms Gray. First, communicating the change to
the
public, and to the profession, would be difficult. “Registration
and membership have been synonymous for over 70 years. The general
move is to make everything as clear as possible for the public and
separating the two would seem to muddy the water.”
She argues that separation of the two roles could lead to a scenario
where someone has been struck off the Register but is still a member
of the Society. “Someone who had committed a serious crime, been
to prison and been struck off the Register might potentially still use
the title MRPharmS and their qualification. They could not legally work
as a pharmacist but might get other work in health care on the strength
of their MRPharmS and degree. The public and employer could not check
up on the registration history of someone who had come off the Register
but who was using their MRPharmS to get work,” says Ms Gray.
Others may argue that this scenario would never happen since the Council
could stipulate that membership of the Society was conditional upon being
on the Register. Thus registered pharmacists could choose whether they
wanted to be a member of the Society or not. However, Ms Gray says that
this would be dependent on future Council policy and could place some
of the Society’s current professional functions at risk since membership
would be voluntary. Influence
Previous consultations
with members (PJ, 16 March 2002, p377)
have shown that the majority who responded want the Society to retain
its integrated
professional and regulatory role. The Society’s representational
work covers the whole of its remit and underpins both professional
and regulatory functions.
Although the integrated role means that the Society is not able to
do everything that pharmacists might want it to — like representing
their individual interests — it does mean that the Society has
been able to achieve a level of influence over policy makers that a trade
union type organisation could not have, explains Ms Gray.
“The fact that we are the regulatory and professional body means
that we are the
people to come to,” she says. The Society’s
leadership and professional development roles are strengthened by the
fact that all pharmacists are members. Splitting registration and membership
would weaken this position. “The Society has a real ability to
influence Government policy. The Section 60 Order is a good example of
this. Overall, most of the Council’s decisions have been incorporated
into the Order,” says Ms Gray.
The integrated role also means that the Society has been particularly
successful at working in line with the Kennedy principles of a modern
regulator, says Ms Gray. The Kennedy principles say that regulation should
be about more than discipline. “It is about helping good pharmacists
to stay good [practitioners], and to become better,” says Ms Gray. Splitting the Society
Some people may argue that breaking the link between registration and
membership would allow the Society to split into two separate organisations — a
regulator and a membership organisation. However, Ms Gray says that
this argument could be misleading. “The indications from the
Government to date have been that it would not want to set up a new
regulator for pharmacy in Great Britain. If the Government were indeed
minded to do anything along these lines a risk would be that it would
simply take regulation away from the Society.”
The most likely outcome would then be that regulation of pharmacists
and pharmacy technicians would be undertaken by the Health Professions
Council, with no guarantee of even one pharmacist or technician on that
Council, says Ms Gray. And if this happened the Society could not guarantee
that all pharmacists would choose to be members. This could result in
neither organisation being a strong voice for pharmacy, she warns. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal