The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 276 No 7404 p700
10 June 2006

Society summary

Council urged to act on 2005 resolution so that branches are not forced to rely on sponsorship

The branch representatives' meeting urged the Council to implement a resolution of the 2005 BRM calling on it to provide enough funding to enable the branches to run a full programme without commercial sponsorship.

Paul Brown (Teesside) moved: “That the motion which the members of the Teesside branch put to the 2005 BRM and which was adopted by the meeting has not been implemented by Council nor has a satisfactory progress report been provided. The meeting therefore calls upon the members of the Council to implement the will of the members of the Society as expressed in the Teesside branch 2005 BRM motion — as they are honour-bound to do if democracy is to prevail.”

He said that the branch does not believe that its successful 2005 motion has been properly addressed. Although the Council’s responses to the motion were clear, they did not address the motion that was carried.

The branch was not calling for a ban on commercial sponsorship, just the ability to run a full programme without having to go down that route. The guidance produced on commercial sponsorship was welcome, but commercial sponsorship was quickly exhausted. The NHS was moving away from such things.

The President (Hemant Patel) said that in his experience it is not true that the NHS is moving away from commercial sponsorship. In fact, there is guidance to encourage NHS organisations to work more closely with commercial organisations.

Helen McKnight (Bolton) said that she is a director of a primary care trust and author of its commercial sponsorship policy. Yes, the NHS was being encouraged to work with commercial sponsors but with very strict accountability and a requirement to ensure that the business was not compromised in any way. She also said that it is hard to attract commercial sponsorship and sometimes one feels compromised.

(Before the debate, the Society’s head of public affairs and communications, Beverly Parkin, drew attention to an error in the Council’s background information to the motion. She said that the figure of £200,000 related to total current branch funding, not just the core funding.)