The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7468 p258
8 September 2007

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• Retention fees (5)
• Community pharmacy
• MURs
• White Paper

Letters to the Editor

White Paper

A number of reservations

From Dr I. ab I. Davies, MRPharmS

In response to the White Paper “Trust, assurance and safety”, I have a number of reservations regarding the proposal for an appointed General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) to regulate the profession. These include:

• Who will appoint the members of its council?

• What qualifications will be required to be eligible for appointment to its council, especially for lay members? I would not expect to be nominated to serve on a board that was responsible for regulating air traffic controllers, since I have no experience in this area of work, so I would be concerned at the appointment of lay members, who have no knowledge or experience of the requirements to practise as a pharmacist, to the proposed GPhC, a body that will be involved in regulating the profession

• To whom is the council responsible and accountable?

• To what extent would the council be responsible for “the education and training of pharmacists from undergraduate to postgraduate level and also for the proposed revalidation of pharmacists to ensure their fitness to practise” (see PJ, 19 May 2007, p573)? Such matters, surely, should be the responsibility of the profession itself.

The Pharmaceutical Society, since its inception in 1843 and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society have served the profession well for over 150 years. To jettison this foundation in favour of a college of pharmacy would be detrimental to the profession and serve no useful purpose.

Creating a “Royal College of Pharmacy” is out of the question — see Raymond Dickinson’s letter, PJ, 26 May 2007, p607).

Why not model the Society on Parliament and the judiciary, where an elected parliament makes the laws that are regulated by an independent, appointed judiciary. If this were the case the elected Society could be retained to provide leadership and direction for the profession with regard to education and practice.

The Society would also be instrumental in appointing the members of the GPhC thus ensuring that the GPhC is “fit for purpose” and not simply another unaccountable “QUANGO”.

The GPhC could be responsible for the registration of pharmacists as a requirement to practise and also for the registration of premises. Its council could be responsible for the evaluation of educational standards and for monitoring the Society’s programme for evaluating “fitness to practice”.

The GPhC could report to the Society and to Parliament so that any inconsistencies that might arise between the intentions in the Society’s regulations and their application could be amended.

A single fee for membership of the Society and the GPhC could be levied for practising pharmacists and there could be a reduced fee for non-practising or retired pharmacists — for membership of the Society only.

Regional variations could be accommodated by founding elected colleges of pharmacy, eg, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Members of these colleges could be elected to the council of the Society that would serve as an umbrella organisation for the whole of the UK.

Iolo Davies
Ballygowan, County Down, Northern Ireland

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