Time to pull together
Repercussions of the Government's decision to remove professional regulation from the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and establish a General Pharmaceutical Council to take responsibility for it may reach far into the by-ways of the profession — and the consequences may ripple through the profession for decades.
“Professional leadership in pharmacy” — the report
produced by the King’s Fund off the back of a seminar commissioned
by Lord Carter’s working party (p417) — reveals that at the
moment there is great enthusiasm among the pharmacy groups and seminar
attendees
for the establishment of a royal college for pharmacy, or for the pharmacy
profession (as the King’s Fund report describes it). Moreover,
it is accepted that the impetus for this will come from the Society and
the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland, working in tandem with
these other groups — and confirmed by a statement issued by the
Society last week.
So far, so good. But a critical question will have to be addressed before
too long: who is to be in and who is to be out? Some observant readers
of The Journal may realise that we
were underplaying this a few weeks
ago (17 March, p296) but the landscape seems to be changing so rapidly
at the moment that it has become a question that needs to be answered
before it can be decided how the royal college will be governed.
The description used by the King’s Fund is telling: “for
the pharmacy profession” could encompass pharmaceutical scientists
and pharmacy technicians in some capacity. Indeed the Association of
Pharmacy Technicians UK has already made it known that technician
membership of the proposed royal college is one of its key objectives (PJ, 7 April,
p387). Encompassing everyone would probably make economic sense: the
more professional groups see that the royal college might offer them
status and services, the more sustainable it looks. On the other hand,
pharmacists might want to keep the royal college for themselves and believe
that their academic interests and support for their professional development
will be better served if they adopt a title like the medical royal colleges
and become “the royal college of pharmacists”. These issues
have already begun to be aired in our letters
columns (PJ, 7 April, p396).
Another concern is whether the college will be dominated by community
pharmacists (like the Society), or whether it will be taken over by specialists.This
may not be acceptable to generalist pharmacists.
Meanwhile, contractors in England may find they gain a stronger voice
if anything comes from the mooted
discussions between the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee
and the National Pharmacy Association (p415) and, as a result, may consider progression towards a royal college
as something of a sideshow.
If ever there were a time for pharmacists to put their differences aside
and pull together to develop a strong leadership body, this is it.
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