The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7479 p587-588
24 November 2007

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• Abortion
• NPA PMI bid
• Retention fees (5)
• The Society (2)
• The Council
• Community pharmacy
• Health care regulations
• Medicines distribution
• Ethics
• Locum pharmacy (3)
• Remuneration

Letters to the Editor

The Society

Throwing away 160 years of honourable development

From Mr A. Denholm, MRPharmS

Some interesting points have emerged during the uproar regarding the proposed retention fee rise and I would like to make the following comments.

First, The Pharmaceutical Journal is self-funding, so there is no reason, apart from postage why a copy cannot be sent to retired members, out of courtesy, if nothing else. I think a simple “thank you” for a lifetime’s contribution to the profession would be an obligation this current Royal Pharmaceutical Society hierarchy might find hard to comprehend, but as an honourable gesture it is entirely correct.

Secondly, all the costs mentioned by our Treasurer as being responsible for this year’s unprecedented rise are, as far as I can see, one-off special events.

The pension fund deficit will be gone. (The fact that I can be so generous to people I never knew I was in any way obligated warms the cockles of my cynical heart.) The prior year deficit will be gone. The increased operating costs, national insurance I assume, will not be gone.

However if any serious attempt were made to control staff numbers, this increase would be minimal. Therefore can we assume next year the fee will return to less than £300? Of course not. The Society has become bloated on the life blood of the membership.

Was I the only pharmacist who wrote to my MP? Sadly, the reply I received merely illustrated how irrelevant we are to the powers that be in Westminster and how totally ignorant they are of the ramifications on this profession of their ill-informed, Shipman-based knee-jerk response.

However, there is a more serious side to this rise to my mind: the membership protested, wrote letters, filled in petitions, and answered consultation documents, but the fee rise went ahead anyway — £30 pounds less, but it went ahead just the same.

So if the membership’s views are totally irrelevant to the Lambeth High Street Kremlin, just whom does the Society think it will be representing in 2012 or thereabouts apart from itself, and which of its functions does it think we going to pay for?

Who is going to sign up to the voluntary membership society? Will it possibly be the hospital pharmacists sitting in their cold garrets counting their 1.5 per cent pay rise?

Will it be the major chains, to which the Society has just presented a bill for many hundreds of thousands of pounds, which will be passed on to the Chancellor as a business expense?

Will it be proprietor owners, who have also just presented the Chancellor with a tax write-off for business expenses which also will run into many hundreds of thousands of pounds.

This remains the question the Society needs to ask itself.

In my view the Society has just thrown away 160 years of honourable development and will succeed only in splitting the membership into a series of professional camps, in what is probably the greatest political misjudgement and mismanagement since Mr Chamberlain returned from Munich.

Roll on retirement so I can join another irrelevant group — the pensioners.

Alan Denholm
Keswick, Cumbria

Not much value in emeritus status

From Mr W. T. Brookes, FRPharmS

The Official Notices (PDF 60K) in the PJ of 13 October, which caused my good friend Bruce Rhodes to ask a number of questions about the proposed emeritus status of (former) members and fellows (PJ, 17 November, p565), had also prompted me to put a series of similar questions to Jeremy Holmes, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Chief Executive and Registrar.

I have just received his reply, for which I am grateful. However, it causes me to question the value of the award as outlined since those such as Bruce and me had understood it would be a means of remaining on the Register.

To quote Mr Holmes, “the awards of emeritus fellowship and emeritus membership of the RPSGB will … be new categories of Society distinction that will recognise the distinction of … fellows and members who have retired from the Register and who have previously been on the Register for 50 (total not necessarily continuous) years or more. To be clear, emeritus fellows and members will not be on the Society’s Register.”

He goes on to say that they will be offered the privilege of a reduced price subscription to the PJ of £30 per annum but will not be able to use any form of post-nominal designation.

In addition, presumably, although this has yet to be clarified, they will not be able to attend the annual general meeting or the branch representatives’ meeting or hold office at branch or regional level.

So what is the value of this award in terms of membership? The answer would appear to be “not a lot”.

Bill Brookes
Stoke-on Trent, Staffordshire

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