Evolution, not revolution
From this issue, The Journal is focusing its coverage of Royal Pharmaceutical Society matters in a slightly different way than it has in recent years. The changes, however, are evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
This issue of The Journal is accompanied by a newsletter — Your
Society — that will be distributed with the first issue of the
month throughout the year (p5). It is designed to let readers know what
the Society is all about, particularly in the run-up to the establishment
of the General Pharmaceutical Council. It will cover the thinking behind
decisions underpinning the emergence of the new professional body, the
services the Society offers members, and who does what, among other topics.
It will also help members to understand more clearly what the Society’s
aims and achievements are.
This is not to say that The Journal will no longer cover Society matters.
Far from it. We will still produce a Society section but it will be less
newsy and will concentrate on Official Notices and Transactions and will
include reports of Council meetings. These changes will enable The
Journal to give more space to the practice and science of pharmacy and we will
be introducing new elements throughout the year.
We will also continue to publish information about individual pharmacists
and registered technicians. In this issue, for example, we are responding
to requests from members to mark long service and over the next few weeks
we will publish the names of pharmacists who have been on the Register
for 50 years or more (p34) — an achievement we intend to mark every
January in future.
Meanwhile, announcements from the Society will be covered in the general
news section of The Journal, sometimes at length, sometimes
briefly, but they will have to compete for prominence with news from
other national
pharmacy bodies, the governments in the home countries and leading international
clinical journals and conferences.
We will also consider articles from
the Society — like the one this week on the proposed amendments
to the Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians Order 2007 on p26. We hope
that this approach will clarify for readers the editorial independence
of The Journal: material from the Society will only be accepted for publication
by The Journal if it stands up to the same scrutiny of being in members’ interests
as any other news item, letter or article that we are asked to consider.
Your Society, on the other hand, although produced by PJ Publications,
is written by freelance journalists and Society staff, and is edited
by the Chief Executive and Registrar, Jeremy Holmes. Unashamedly it is
the voice of the Society, but its provenance is not disguised and, by
keeping an eye on it over the coming months, members should learn what
the Society has to say about its own future.
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