| · Non-medical prescribing (2)
· Medicines management
· Roche Diagnostics
· Electronic prescribing (2)
· Pharmaceutical Press
· Education (3)
· Council election (4)
· Onlooker (2)
Letters to the Editor
|
Council election
Erroneous analysis
From Mr D. I. Simpson, FRPharmS
As one of the candidates in the most recent Royal Pharmaceutical Society
Council election, I am sorry if I failed to inspire Peter
Mutton to vote
(PJ, May 20, p591). But I feel he is labouring under a misapprehension
when he criticises Council members for not engaging with branches and
regions.
The figures for Council members’ attendance at branch and regional
meetings in the Society’s Annual Review relate to meetings that
Council members are invited to attend in an official capacity: as a speaker,
for example. They do not relate to attendance at branch meetings as an
ordinary member or officer of their own branch. The figures would be
much higher if the latter were included.
Mr Mutton also averages out the attendance figures, which unfairly tars
all Council members with the same brush. He should recognise that a large
number of Council members nowadays are lay members, and are not branch
members as such, which further confounds his assertions.
Furthermore to suggest, as he does, that the Council does not share his
aspirations for the development of a “clinically focused agenda” and
that progress has been made in this direction in spite of the Council
rather than because of it is a travesty of the truth. It bears as much
relation to the facts as his assertions on lack of interest among Council
members in branch and regional affairs.
Douglas Simpson
Member of Council
Royal Pharmaceutical Society
Sisters are doing it for themselves
From Mr S. J. Walker, MRPharmS
The beard will have to go, thanks to you (PJ,13 May, p554). I am one
who voted for Dorothy
Drury, apparently due to my membership of the female
sex (which has come as a shock to my wife, I must say).
Ignore the fact that my company provided some locums for Mrs Drury when
she owned two community pharmacies in Bridlington, helped identify a
purchaser when she decided to sell them, and even that we now organise
some locum work for her. Am I to accept your patronising assumption that
Mrs Drury was elected via a sisterhood?
Through business, I know Mrs Drury and exchange opinions with her. Many
pharmacists (and I speak to more than most, due to my work) share similar
views to her. Many believe that she understands the rarely listened to
views of the silent majority who do not vote because they see the Council
at best as irrelevant to them, at worst as making decisions which make
their working lives worse and bear no relation to the real world. Many
perceive that the Council treats its electors and membership with contempt.
Mrs Drury spent much of her holiday in the Cotswolds last year dropping
in on community pharmacies and asking how she could help and represent
them in her capacity as a Council member. She still works actively in
community pharmacy, so knows the problems community pharmacists face
day to day. She has made herself available to any pharmacist who wishes
to raise a concern with her, recognising problems faced by hospital,
industrial and academic pharmacists and not just community pharmacists.
I am delighted that Mrs Drury was re-elected and that my vote counted.
I voted for her because she shares many (not necessarily all) other pharmacists’ views
as well as mine. Changing my sex is a high price to pay, but will be
worth it if Mrs Drury can represent the views of thousands of ordinary
pharmacists who feel disenfranchised by the Council where it is out of
touch with the needs of the profession.
Stephen Walker
Professional Services Director
Nightingale Pharmacy Services
Beverley,
East Yorkshire
My disappointment at the sheer apathy of Society members
From Mr C. R. Cooper, MRPharmS
I would like to take issue with some
of the conclusions drawn in The
Journal’s coverage of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society election
results (PJ, 13 May, p554). First, the voting statistics make it clear
that those who voted used an average of 3.2 votes and clearly Pradip
Patel and I both enjoyed the support of loyal Boots pharmacists as opposed
to splitting the vote as suggested.
The results also indicate that our votes probably came mainly from Boots
pharmacists and not other sectors of the profession, indicating a willingness
to continue the unbalanced make-up of the Council which has no representation
from the hospital sector and only one from the multiple sector.
Having said that, my biggest disappointment with the election is the
sheer apathy of the roughly 80 per cent of members who did not bother
to vote at all. The process of registering a vote could not be much easier
and, therefore, the vast majority of members must feel that either their
vote will not make a difference to the result, or the result will not
make a difference to how the Society operates. Either case is worrying
and leaves one wondering just how informed and interested members are
in the key issues for pharmacy in the future, such as continuing professional
development and remote supervision.
Chris Cooper
Nottingham
Pharmacists are not as daft as some would like to think
From Mr M. K. Garfoot, MRPharmS
Why are you surprised at the failure
of the Boots candidates to be elected
to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council (PJ, 13 May, p554)?
It is possible that pharmacists are not as daft as some would like to think
and that they do not want the suits that big organisations put forward
running their Society for the benefit of big business?
Martin Garfoot
Newcastle upon Tyne |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal