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Letters to the Editor
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White Paper
The “Waterloo group” wants to move forward in partnership with pharmacy organisations
From Mr I. G. Simpson, FRPharmS, and others
We are grateful to Alan Rogers for his useful
review of the current situation on professional regulation and leadership (PJ, 16 June, p707)
and we agree with much of what he has to say. However, as some of the
signatories to the Waterloo Agreement, we must point out two factual
errors in his article. The first is that it is the Guild of Healthcare
Pharmacists and not the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association that is the
largest organisation among the signatories. The second is that we have
not, as stated by Mr Rogers, been vocal in opposing a revamped Royal
Pharmaceutical Society.
The Waterloo Agreement was published as part of the King’s Fund
Report1 and is available on the College
of Pharmacy Practice website but perhaps it is worth restating
the first three points here, because they clearly demonstrate our commitment
to work
with the Society:
• The organisations will work together with each other, with the Society
and the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland towards the establishment
of a body akin to a royal college to provide leadership for the pharmacy
profession at national and UK levels
• The organisations recognise the importance of the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society in terms of its Charter, history, infrastructure and assets
• The organisations believe that they all have significant contributions
to make to the debate and infrastructure of the new body and that they
should, therefore, participate as equal partners with the UK pharmaceutical
societies and others in formative discussions of the aims, objectives
and organisational arrangements
The third point is similar to Mr Rogers’s proposal that the national
pharmaceutical bodies should join with the Society to explore the way
forward. Indeed the chairman
of the UKCPA (PJ, 9 June, p672) has already
called for pharmaceutical organisations, including the Society, to move
forward in partnership. In addition, we agree with Mr Rogers’s
proposal for the CPP to join the Society and others as the vehicle for
driving forward clinical leadership and excellence. The college
chief executive (ibid, p671) has already suggested that the college and other
organisations should merge under the umbrella of the Society, to become
the academy of pharmacy practice proposed in Lord Carter’s report2 and this is not, as suggested in your
editorial (PJ, 16 June, p692),
motivated by financial issues.
In the same letter, the college chief executive has outlined the sensitivities
around the use of the title “royal”, so we are in wholehearted
agreement with Mr Rogers’s proposal that we should abandon the
phrase “body akin to a royal college”, and move forward together
to create a “body for professional and clinical leadership” to
include all aspects of the science and practice of pharmacy.
We are pleased that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society has approved
plans to consult members and key stakeholders on the way forward (PJ, 16 June,
p693) and we look forward to participating in those discussions.
Ian G. Simpson
Chief Executive
College of Pharmacy Practice
Catherine Duggan
Chairman
UK Clinical Pharmacy Association
Howard McNulty
General Secretary
Institute of Pharmacy Management
Nigel Barnes
Chairman
Pharmaceutical Advisers’ Group
Celia Feetam
Chairman
College of Mental Health Pharmacists
Jean Curtis
Professional Secretary
Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists
Paul Maltby
UK Radiopharmacy Group
Geoff Saunders
British Oncology Pharmacy Association
Teresa Rutter
NHS Pharmacy Education and Development Committee
References
1. King’s Fund. Professional leadership in pharmacy — exploring
the case for a royal college for the pharmacy profession. London: The
King’s Fund, 23 March 2007.
2. Department of Health. Report of the working party on professional
regulation and leadership in pharmacy. Gateway Ref: 8166. London: Department
of Health, May 2007.
Let's get some hard options on the table
From Mr A. B. Sutherland, MRPharmS
I read with annoyance your plea
for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to be preserved (PJ, 5 May, p512). I agree with Lord Hunt: the Society should
be disbanded and a new royal college (or should that be colleges?) established
free from government interference and vested interests that have dominated
our profession for many years.
As I see it, the Society, with its head buried in the Lambeth sandpit rejigging
the code of ethics and pursuing a new royal charter, would have been better
off spending our money over recent years on pre-empting the Department
of Health and putting itself forward for separation of regulatory and professional
responsibility. Did members notice that we were warned that a “substantial
rise in the retention fee may be inevitable” so that the change in
regulation can be facilitated (PJ, 26 May, p624)? Yet again members will
be made to pay for the Society’s shortcomings.
Now is not a time for nostalgia about 160 years of the Society and how
it important it has been, but a time for everyone to voice how things should
be and how important we as a profession can be. Let there be no more meetings
for the chosen few and no more cuddly letters from the Society’s
great and good. Let us get some hard options on the table. Let us have
some suggestions that are out of the box, however bad or good they are,
and let us debate them.
Here is my idea. All pharmacists (and technicians) should be regulated
by the General Pharmaceutical Council and then have two royal colleges — one
for community pharmacy practice and the other for hospital pharmacy practice — towards
which all pharmacists should work. Career progression could be linked to
this.
I believe the infrastructure for such things is already in place with the
Centre for Postgraduate Pharmacy Education and the College of Pharmacy
Practice. It would not so great an upheaval to adopt this model, which
could provide most of the continuing professional development materials
that pharmacists would need in the first five to 10 years of their careers.
I appreciate that there are thousands of pharmacists who are neither community
nor hospital pharmacists and they should be free to choose which royal
college they wish to work towards joining, within the constraints of their
appropriate professional development. Membership of a royal college should
not be a mandatory requirement for practising as a pharmacist and, just
as there are thousands of doctors who choose not to pursue a royal college
path, there will be similar numbers of pharmacists.
It is time to think and act more like a health care profession and less
like a chamber of commerce.
Adam Sutherland
Glasgow |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal