The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7463 p116
4 August 2007

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An unavoidable increase

Full steam ahead for Pharmacy 2020

An unavoidable increase

Many pharmacists will be dismayed by the rise in fees announced by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society this week (p129). The hike is unprecedented but the Society's activities have unavoidably increased over the past four years as it has responded to the demands placed on it as a regulator. So, for example, the need to have more lay members has come at a cost, as has the establishment of the new fitness-to-practise committees (health as well as disciplinary). In addition, the three national pharmacy boards, established to reflect devolution, have to be serviced. Other reasons for the increase are explained in the Society section.

Some pharmacists, no doubt, will find the increase unsustainable and decide to stop practising. However, compared with most other health professions (with the exception of nursing, where the economies of scale of over 600,000 registrants enable the Nursing and Midwifery Council to keep their fees low) the fees for belonging to a single Royal Pharmaceutical Society still compare favourably with the fees required to be registered with a regulator and be a member of a separate professional body.

The Journal also understands that there are plans to introduce a system that will go some way to mitigate the end-of-year double whammy, where fees have to be paid on 1 January immediately after the Christmas period. The President, Hemant Patel, has asked the Society to look into ways of implementing a payment plan for members as soon as possible so, in time, pharmacists may be able to pay their retention fees in instalments.

The fees for individual registrants are open to consultation for the first time (see p138), since they are now determined under the Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians Order 2007 and do not have to be approved by the Privy Council. Comments should be made by 3 October 2007.

Privy Council approval is still required for examination fees, since they are not yet covered by the Order, and the premises fee — still woefully low and inequitable — must be submitted to the Department of Health to be fixed by Statutory Instrument.

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Full steam ahead for Pharmacy 2020

With all that is going on in the world of pharmacy at the moment it is important not to lose sight of the bigger picture. It is perhaps timely, then, that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Pharmacy 2020 project starts to gather steam this week (p131) with the first in a series of articles to be published over the next two months.

The series will culminate in a consultation document, which will seek members’ views on where pharmacy should be in 10 to 15 years’ time. Responses will be used to generate an initial vision that will be further consulted upon next year.

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