The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 277 No 7410 p91
22 July 2006

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Consultation starts on further regulatory review

Consultation has started on proposals contained in the recently completed reviews of the regulation of health professionals.

The two reviews — one of the General Medical Council by chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson (PDF 2MB) and the other of all non-medical regulators by former Department of Health workforce director Andrew Foster (PDF 1.2MB) — call for far-reaching changes to regulatory bodies and their operations in order to introduce consistency of regulation and increase public confidence.

Stakeholders have been asked whether or not they agree with the principles of the GMC review and whether or not they support the approach taken in both reports. They have also been asked to set out their priorities for implementing the proposals.

Taken together, the two reports have a number of common themes (see Panel), which respondents have also been asked to address.

The review of non-medical regulation calls for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain and the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland to merge and then clearly separate their regulatory and professional leadership functions. They are also identified as members of a minority of regulators that also have a role in promoting their respective professions. The review calls on them to bring roles into line with the majority.

Hemant Patel, the Society’s President, said: “The report alludes to a need to clarify the separation of the Society’s integrated roles of regulation and professional leadership. We have made a robust and evidence-based case for the effectiveness, public benefit and cost-effectiveness of the scope of the Society’s roles, which are based on the Kennedy principles and which we believe are a strength. The Society’s members will find it disappointing that, having acknowledged that the Society’s broader roles do indeed operate for the benefit of the public, the report creates uncertainty over how these roles might be discharged in the future.

“However, I am confident that we can meet any challenges that the report may signal so that we can create a clear and unambiguous future for the profession, in which the public can continue to have confidence. Leadership is about creating workable solutions.

“As leaders of the profession, the Council will be having full discussion of the reports to inform our analysis and our responses to them as well as informing our members, our branches and regions and stakeholders as part of the process during the four-month consultation.”

Mr Patel added that the Society already works closely with its colleagues in Northern Ireland and would discuss the proposals for the future with the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland.

Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee chief executive Sue Sharpe said that proposed restrictions on membership of the councils of regulatory bodies suggested that the Society would become simply a regulator.

“The proposals relating to the role and composition of the Society’s Council represent a fundamental change: regulation would become the predominant role of the Society, and an organisation whose pharmacist members are appointed would not be accepted by the profession as its representative body.”

She added that the suggestion that an individual could not sit on both the PSNC and the Council was intended to address any risk or perception of a conflict of interest between the regulatory functions of the Society and the representative role of PSNC.

National Pharmacy Association chief executive John D’Arcy said that excluding people who hold posts in professional defence bodies from regulatory councils would result in less meaningful discussions in those councils.

Comments on the reviews’ proposals can be sent to the DoH until 10 November.


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