The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7467 p231-232
1 September 2007

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• Retention fees (6)
• The industry
• The Journal (2)

Letters to the Editor

Retention fees

It is your Society so make yourself heard!

From Mr A. C. Gush, MRPharmS

I continue to read with interest, and indeed welcome, the letters in The Pharmaceutical Journal on the fees issue and would like to draw the attention of members to the comprehensive fees Q&A that is now available on the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s website (PDF 210K).

The Q&A addresses some key issues — including the pensions deficit, the demerger of the Society, the Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians Order 2007 and the independent inquiry — and will be updated regularly to reflect the questions being asked by members.

The formal fees consultation still has some six weeks to run and I would urge those members who are yet to respond to engage with the process and to help inform Council thinking.

It is your Society so make yourself heard!

Andrew Gush
Treasurer
Royal Pharmaceutical Society

Let there be different fees for hospital pharmacists

From Mr M. D. Evans, MRPharmS

The thing that interested me most about Royal Pharmaceutical Society Treasurer Andrew Gush’s letter (PJ, 4 August, p125) was the justification he gave for the difference in retention fees for pharmacists and technicians.

The first argument was that technicians are not entitled to the full range of services that pharmacists are entitled to, with the use of the library, access to the Benevolent Fund and Listening Friends Scheme being cited as examples. As a hospital pharmacist with a network of NHS medical libraries at my disposal, I have little need to use the Society’s library at all and therefore feel somewhat cheated that I am being charged for this.

Perhaps the use of the library should be on a subscription or a charge-as-you-use basis so those using it can pay the larger share of the running cost. If this results in the library having to make efficiency savings so that it better reflects the needs of the membership rather than some lofty ideal then all the better.

I may, however, need the Benevolent Fund given that in January I will have to choose between paying my mortgage and becoming jobless, or paying my fees and becoming homeless! Indeed at this time I may even require the Listening Friends Scheme to discuss my plight, although I am sure it will be unavailable to me after my removal from the Register for non-payment. I hope the irony is not lost on you.

Also as a hospital pharmacist, like our technician colleagues I am also far less likely than a community pharmacist to be involved in fitness-to-practise proceedings. Given Mr Gush’s assertion that the “cost of regulation is based on the risks involved” perhaps this principle could be extended to hospital pharmacists so that we also pay a lower fee.

Therefore, I would ask the Society, as part of its consultation on the fee increase, to look at fee structure itself to allow discounts for hospital-based pharmacists, who are indeed the group hardest hit by this latest increase given that we pay our own fees.

Mark Evans
Sidcup, Kent

Why a part-time fee must be reintroduced

From Mr R. W. A. White, MRPharmS

I have worked in community pharmacy since 1962. I have now retired and have never had my fee paid or likely to have it paid for me. I can live with the new fees at least for next year (we had been warned of a substantial increase) and I can live with continuing professional development, but I cannot understand why the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council — a Council that claims to care for pharmacy and its membership — is so blind to the consequences this increase will have on the future of pharmacy.

Community pharmacists are being encouraged to undertake new roles — medicines use reviews, repeat prescriptions, supplementary prescribing, local initiatives, monitored dosage systems and electronic transmission of prescriptions. You are even asking them to grasp the opportunities presented by GPs not operating on weekends (PJ, 28 July, p88).

How is all this going to be achieved? Through the use of part-time pharmacists. Why does the Society seem intent on creating situations which could so easily result in more pharmacies having to close altogether or for limited periods — as is happening now — due to lack of supervisory staff.

Surely common sense dictates that a part-time retention fee should be reintroduced or that some allowance be made. Or maybe the Council does not care about the future as it claims.

Ron White
Warlingham, Surrey

Oh really?

From Mr D. J. Livingstone, MRPharmS

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s business plan for 2007 states: “The Society will be more customer-focused and improve its ‘face’ with its members so they would join even if membership were voluntary.”

Oh really?

Duncan Livingstone
Lancing, West Sussex

The last straw

From Mrs R. A. Backhouse, MRPharmS

I am sure that the huge rise in Royal Pharmaceutical Society retention fees proposed for 2008 will make many mothers (of small children, in particular) think again about renewing their membership.

I was fortunate in being able to pay the reduced fee for the years when I worked a few hours each year. I am still at a loss to see how one can be expected to undertake continuing professional development on such a basis and the rise in retention fees would certainly be the last straw.

After 24 years on the Register I have now changed direction and am on the non-practising Register. I see nothing to make me want to change my mind.

Rachel A. Backhouse
Belvedere, Kent

Boston Tea Party

From P. B. Lowe, MRPharmS

One accepts the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s legitimate interest in seeking financial support for the General Pharmaceutical Council (although the subsidy of this body required from members appears disproportionate), but is the Society empowered to collect fees for the upkeep of the representative body by which it will be succeeded?

This body does not yet exist and has not been adequately defined in scope, reponsibility or powers. Similar imposition of taxation without representation inspired the Boston Tea Party and kindled a successful revolution from which the malcontents have never looked back.

Peter Lowe
Newcastle-Upon-Tyne

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