The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 277 No 7413 p199
12 August 2006

Society summary

Members' retention fees set to rise by 6pc in 2007

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Council has decided to seek approval for increases in the statutory fees, to take effect from 1 January 2007.

At the August Council meeting, the Council decided that the retention fee for practising members should rise by 6 per cent from £267 to £283 and the fee for non-practising members by 6.7 per cent from £60 to £64. All other fees paid by members, preregistration trainees and overseas applicants for registration would rise by about 6 per cent.

Fees for registered pharmacy technicians and applicants for registration as technicians would also rise by about 6 per cent. But the Council agreed that the 2007 retention fee for technicians would be included in the registration application fee for those technicians entering the register between October and December 2006 and that those technicians entering the register in this period would not be required to pay a separate retention fee in 2007.

The premises retention fee would rise by 9.3 per cent from £150 to £164.

The Council has already begun the process of seeking new fees for pharmacist prescribers. It wants a £35 fee for applications to have the Register annotated to indicate that a pharmacist is a supplementary or independent prescriber, plus an annual fee of £35 to retain such annotations (PJ, 29 July, p142).

For members’ and preregistration trainees’ fees, the Society must obtain the approval of the Privy Council for an alteration to the Society’s Byelaws.While the registration of pharmacy technicians remains voluntary, the fees payable by technicians are set by the Society. Once registration becomes a requirement, technicians’ fees will also need Privy Council approval.

In the case of premises fees, the Society must make a submission to the Secretary of State for Health for the proposed fees to be fixed by Statutory Order.

The proposed 2007 fee scale is given in the table, with current fees for comparison.

Commenting on the decision, the Treasurer, John Jolley, said: “The Society is undertaking a stringent review of budget priorities in view of the cost of implementing Section 60 and our national boards as well as several other new work streams going forward in 2007. Our budget will need to support our reviews of pharmacy education, training, the revision of the codes of ethics, our new patient and public involvement programme and work to support independent prescribing. In addition, we are continuing to look at how we support pharmacists through the range of guidance, advice and information that the Society provides.”