Professional body needs a strong regional structure, Society says
A strong regional structure will be key to the success of a professional body, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society believes. “We need to close the gap between a professional leadership body and what pharmacists are doing in practice, and one good mechanism to do that is to have a bottom-up governance structure,” said the Society’s Chief Executive and Registrar Jeremy Holmes at an oral evidence session held by the independent Clarke Inquiry last week.
The Society’s written submission (PDF, 1.15Mb) to the inquiry, published this week, says that the overarching council of the new professional body could derive some of its members from the devolved regional or national structures. The role of this council would be to allocate resources across the whole organisation, to co-ordinate the activities of the devolved structures and to make strategic decisions on GB/UK issues, it says.
The Society believes that it is the only pharmacy body with the necessary breadth and depth of expertise and experience to form the foundation of the new professional body. “We have to work with that. But we cannot do it alone,” said Mr Holmes at a later press briefing. “We recognise that the Society in its current and historic guise is not the organisation we want for the future,” he said. To change that, the Society wants to collaborate with other groups to produce a body that is fit for the future, he added.
Mr Holmes said that the focus of the new professional body should be on its members. “If that means we cannot undertake work under contract to the General Pharmaceutical Council, then so be it,” he said. However, he stressed that the professional body should not have a trade union role.
The written submission says that the professional body should have two goals: to provide a clear, strong voice for pharmacy to maximise its profile and standing with the public, policy-makers and other stakeholders; and to lead and support pharmacy professionals to enable them to realise their professional aspirations and deliver the best possible service to patients and the public.
However, it stays silent on the issue of whether technicians and pharmaceutical scientists should be included in a new professional body, saying that that is for the profession to decide.
The Society proposes two possible models for a new professional body. The first is a network organisation, which builds strong links with pharmacy bodies that wish to remain independent. Members of the professional body would have access to these organisations. The second is a merger model, where the professional body joins or acquires the current independent support groups that agree to join it. “A key driver of which model emerges as the strongest is what those groups want to do,” said Mr Holmes.
The Clarke Inquiry panel asked how, if the Society became the new professional body, it would manage its transition. President Hemant Patel said that he believes the professional body should parallel developments in the new GPhC, which is to have a shadow council from May 2009, before becoming fully operational in 2010.
The Society’s full submission to the
inquiry is available on its website and on the Clarke Inquiry website. The deadline for submissions to the Clarke Inquiry is 31 January. A final report will be presented by the inquiry to the Society’s Council in May.
|
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
Acrobat
Reader