The elephant in the room
Now that the consultations on the reports into the regulation of medical and non-medical health care professionals have ended (p595, p601 and
p619), the waiting begins. What will the Government decide next? It
is unlikely that any official response will be published until the
spring of next year and, since there was no mention of health care
regulation in the Queen’s speech this week, it is doubtful that
any necessary legislation will be put forward in this session of Parliament.
The main aims of the reports are to improve patient safety (particularly
post-Shipman) and to bring health professions into line with each other.
In order to achieve these aims, both reports make a number of recommendations
for updating the disciplinary machinery underpinning regulation that
are, in fact, already met by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
The real issue for the Society has yet to be addressed: what exactly
will happen to the Society itself? Will it continue to exist in its current
form or will it become two separate organisations?
In its response to the so-called Foster review the Society does not address
the issue explicitly. The report only asked the Society to clarify the
separation of its regulatory and leadership functions (since there could
be a perception that its two roles present a conflict of interest). It
did not ask it to produce a definitive new structure that reflects all
the functions that the Society carries out and that will satisfy the
Government on behalf of patients and the Society’s members. That
would be have been too tall an order for the Society since the need for
clarification was only mooted in July this year.
The Society was right not to use its response to these two reports as
the vehicle for raising such a momentous — and potentially contentious — issue
as the reconfiguration of the Society’s structures and functions.
Moreover, in order for the membership to be able to make an informed
decision about the future of the Society there are a number of steps
that need to be taken first, and various options, their costs, benefits
and risks all put in the melting-pot.
The Council will be discussing a potential way forward at its next meeting
at the beginning of December. And, increasingly, members of the Society
are beginning to air their views: we have already carried some letters
discussing separation.
For at least the past five years, the possibility of the Society splitting
has been the elephant in the room. But the political imperatives have
changed and — now that the possibility is acknowledged — let
us hope that the debate is constructive and serious.
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