Engage the silent majority
Lord Hunt, it seems, has achieved something that no one else has done in living memory: he has united the profession. Former presidents and secretaries of the Society, and various other members (as well as lay members of the Society's Council), are demanding that either the Government stops interfering in the Society's future or — if the future is integral to its policy — declare its hand (p604,
p607 and p626). Whatever the Government — and that includes ministers
and chief pharmaceutical officers — may want for the Society,
it will not be determined simply by a desire for “a new body
akin to a royal college”, if the membership of the Society decides
that is not what it wants.
So what does the membership want? Apparently,
a lot of pharmacists are keen on the idea of a royal college-type body.
They like the idea of specialist pharmacists finding support within an
academy or faculty structure. They like the idea of the Society being
turned inside out and then opening its doors to a plethora of groups
within the pharmacy family. Then there are those who quite like the college
idea but are keener to preserve the identity of the Society as a representative
body for pharmacists alone.
It would be a huge achievement if most of these wants were to be satisfied:
a body primarily governed by elected pharmacists (provided there is some
sectoral representation) with faculties for all members of the pharmacy
family, whose deliberations feed into part of the structure providing
support for the General Pharmaceutical Council, and another part offering
services, support and advice to individual members (ie, the British Medical
Association without the negotiating committees).
Although The Journal has a good idea of the range of views of the engaged
minority of pharmacists, nobody has yet discovered what the silent majority
wants (if anything). The Society must move quickly to engage them as
soon as possible if it wants to keep its head above water and not lose
momentum.
None of these plans — whether grandiose or modest — will
come to anything without money. As the Society’s President, Hemant
Patel, has already warned (p597), there is likely
to be a substantial increase in retention fees next year, not only to fulfil the regulatory
obligations, which are increasingly onerous under the terms of the Section
60 order, but also to pay for the massive amount of work that has to
be done to ensure some sort of secure future for professional leadership.
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