The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 277 No 7428 p637
25 November 2006

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· Section 60 Order (2)
· Supermarket pharmacy
· Patient safety
· Controlled drugs (2)
· Drug misuse
· The profession
· The Council (2)
· The Society
· Community pharmacy

Letters to the Editor

The Council

Society's Council is elected to serve the members

From Mr R. P. Peskett, MRPharmS

I was wryly amused by the letter from A. F. Huntley (PJ, 11 November, p573) complaining that branch members had shown a lack of respect to members of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council and the Society.

It should be pointed out that Council members and staff at Lambeth are elected or appointed to serve the membership and that as servants it is, first, they who owe respect to the membership. Unfortunately, for many years, this is a respect that has been singularly lacking, with some in Lambeth appearing to believe that the membership owes the Society a living.

It should also be pointed out that respect has to be earned. The Society’s record in recent years, including the despicable way it has treated veteran pharmacists, invites only contempt.

R. Paul Peskett
Reading, Berkshire

Detected no disrespect

From Dr B. P. Curwain, MRPharmS

I would like to thank A. F. Huntley for his letter (PJ, 11 November, p573), concerning what he felt was poor attendance at the meeting of the Bristol branch of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society at which I spoke. I suppose we all know that respect of pharmacists has to be earned. The Society is aware that it needs to provide leadership to the profession and that its track record in doing so is not altogether satisfactory. This view was recently echoed by Keith Ridge, chief pharmacist at the Department of Health, at a Southampton branch meeting. The imminent national pharmacy boards elections offer a chance for pharmacists and technicians to elect those whom they feel are capable of providing leadership for practice development at this critical stage.

Currently, our branches do not seem especially keen to ask Council members to speak at meetings. Clinical issues are what seem to turn us on and we must be unusual as a group in that we rely heavily on members of other professions to provide us with clinical updates. I hope that the time is coming when innovative pharmacists will start to be sought by branches as speakers. There are many examples of good practice out there and I am happy to say that the Society is actively looking for leading edge pharmacy practitioners that it can add to its book of suggested speakers. It is able to fund the expenses of two speakers per year per branch.

Finally, I thank the Bristol members who came to my talk and took part in the subsequent discussion. I would like to reassure Mr Huntley that I detected no disrespect from members either personally or on behalf of the Society as a result of this event, which I enjoyed.

Brian Curwain
English National Board Election Candidate
Member of Council
Royal Pharmaceutical Society

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