Ground-breaking boards
There are likely to be many developments in pharmacy during 2007 and just off the blocks are the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's national
boards for England, Scotland and Wales (p81). The boards for Scotland and Wales are not as innovative as the one for England in the sense that the Scottish and Welsh executives were already doing some of the work that the new boards will do.
The board in England is entirely new, and how it will function alongside
the Society’s Council will be one of the challenges for the year.
The fact that it is an entirely new structure and has no track record
may go some way to explain why so few pharmacists voted in the election:
just over 14 per cent of pharmacists participated in England, compared
with 24 per cent in Scotland and just under 30 per cent in Wales. Moreover,
nearly double that percentage of pharmacy technicians participated in
the English board election and just under 37 per cent of technicians
in Wales took part. Another reason may be that pharmacists outside the
confines of Lambeth and the branch and regional network may not have
registered how ground-breaking these boards could be. They could, both
theoretically and in practice, be the template for the structures that
may be put in place to support the Government’s desire to separate
the professional leadership and regulatory functions of the Society.
As far as professional leadership is concerned some pharmacists seem
to be looking to the royal medical colleges for comparison; others to
the British Medical Association.
The colleges gain their clout because they are highly specialised and
look after the standards and educational needs of groups of medical professionals
who are either on the top rung of their career or expecting to reach
that point at some stage. Many of their members and fellows have international
reputations and are ambassadors not only for their specialty but for
the NHS itself.
Arguably, the BMA’s influence and power largely stem from its trade
union activities. Its committees negotiate terms and conditions of service
for all doctors — not just its members. Anecdotally, Westminster
politicians have always been concerned to keep the BMA on side because
of the perceived influence doctors have on their patients and, therefore,
the wider electorate. Since trade
unionism is unlikely ever to be a part of the Society’s brief (p74), pharmacists need to look closely
at what else the BMA achieves and either mirror its successes or aim
to take ground away from it — particularly with respect to any
pronouncements it makes about medicines.
The Society, through its national boards, needs to focus on what professional
leadership pharmacists require and what it can offer — and if there
is a gap between the two, how it can best be filled.
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