| · Section 60 Order (2)
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Letters to the Editor
|
Section 60 Order
Do you want a regulator to be your professional representative?
From Mr A. C. Gush, MRPharmS
A proactive response to change is essential for an organisation to remain
both relevant and functional, and enables debate and self determination
rather than imposition. In this post-Shipman era, the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society is rightly considering the compatibility of its regulatory role
for pharmacy and its representative role for pharmacists.
The Foster report highlights the inevitable changes that are necessary
for the Society to perform as a modern-day regulator to meet the public
interest and the consequential changes needed to the composition of the
Society’s Council. These changes will rightly configure a Council
that consists mainly of lay, technician and appointed members to meet
this regulatory function. A small non-pharmacist majority would give
such an organisation the right balance, and a good representation of
elected pharmacists would make the organisation feel relevant and accessible
to the professionals it was regulating.
These changes will not configure a Council that gives strong representative
leadership to pharmacists and, as the chief pharmacists for England and
Scotland stated at the recent British Pharmaceutical Conference, it is
important that a robust regulatory body is challenged by an independent
professional body with strong uncompromising leadership.
So we must give due consideration to retaining only a representative
function which certainly could be enhanced through the championing of
revalidation, education and continuing professional development. The
framework for these functions should stay with the regulator but delivery
should be the sole responsibility of the professional body. Such a body
should be viable financially due to a membership which was inclusive
of all practising pharmacists. This independent professional body should
also benefit from the retained assets of the Society and the substantial
income from publications. The Society and its pharmacist members might,
also, no longer suffer the financial exposure resulting from the current
subsidy given to the regulatory function.
Let us start the debate now and consider all the possibilities, not dismissing
any radical action. We have the opportunity to produce a solution that
is a win for the public interest and a win for our pharmacist membership.
Please engage in this debate as choice is always better than imposition.
Andrew Gush
Member of Council
Royal Pharmaceutical Society
Relinquish the role of regulator
From Mr F. G. McCaul, MRPharmS
As chairman of the Independent Pharmacy Federation I write to endorse
Noel Baumber’s Broad
spectrum article in last week’s PJ (18
November, p606). The issues he raises were discussed at our steering group
meeting this week and our firm conclusion is that the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society should relinquish its role as a regulator and revert to its origins
as a professional association for pharmacists.
By all accounts the so-called dual role is not working as it should. Given
that the Government (through the Foster review) is now insisting that all
regulators are to have a majority of lay members on their boards, any credibility
that the Society may still have as a representative body for pharmacists
will be destroyed.
It might be argued that the multiples can look after themselves, thus the
lack of a body to represent the professional interests of pharmacists will
affect the independent sector most. That would be bad news for the profession
and patients alike, since innovation is primarily driven by the independent
sector of the profession. Revalidation issues will need a far more responsive
Society than we have had in the past few years and will touch the education
and livelihood of all practising pharmacists.
Let us take the future into our own hands and rescue our Society from a
future as a Government quango. We need to preserve the Society’s
considerable assets for its members and allow it to perform the role for
which it was formed, unfettered by the Government’s regulatory diktats.
Fin McCaul
Chairman
Independent Pharmacy Federation |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal