The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7490 p214
23 February 2008

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• Emeritus status
• Community pharmacy
• EHC (3)
• Dispensing
• The profession (2)
• Manufacturing
• Supply

Letters to the Editor

The profession

There is a need for a real power base

From Mr J. D. Thomas, MRPharmS

It is a sad fact that pharmacy has always had a minority interest among parliamentarians, as it has never had any continuous and effective political representation within the seat of political power when compared with other professions.

Coupled with this stark reality, community pharmacy is not fully recognised as a being a profession within a retail environment. In the eyes of our demanding public and their elected representatives, retail equates to profit and profit is an unacceptable word, giving the perception of excess and greed, as is ever being exposed in the media of large company profits and salary packages.

If only community pharmacists had the same perception as a true profession, such as GPs, they would have received a 50 per cent increase in their remuneration as compared with the Category M and future generic clawbacks.

Community pharmacy is constantly having new initiatives thrust upon it due to this Government’s emphasis on preventive medicine. This has and will continue to generate greater than inflationary prescription numbers, which is no fault of chemist contractors, who are only the messengers.

Unfortunately due to the increase in the total drug bill costs, chemist contractors are being used as a scapegoat that can be easily used to recover some of these monies.

The poor old Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee is not as its name suggests, but merely a consulting committee. From my own personal experience at plenary meetings, meaningful negotiations are not undertaken.

But over the years, this committee, contrary to popular belief, has given real value to chemist contractors. The increasing proportion of large multiple ownership, with all the profit images they exhibit, can only be counterproductive in Government pay negotiations. Various legal judgments have made the Royal Pharmaceutical Society impotent in any financial representations, and because of this lack of presence, its efforts to promote our profession as a whole, in my view, have failed miserably.

Financial functions have had to be taken over and provided by the National Pharmacy Association, the PSNC and, latterly, by the Company Chemists Association. This apparent lack of unity within the profession has been exploited by Government as a sign of weakness.

Hopefully, with the forthcoming and long overdue changes to our Society, the proposed new body can catch the imagination of our profession and provide a real powerbase to promote and drive our profession to its full potential.

J. D. Thomas
Patshull, Shropshire

A coalition for change

From Mr G. Hall, MRPharmS

In her Broad spectrum article (PJ, 9 February 2008, p148), Catherine Duggan makes some important points.

We have an unprecedented opportunity between now and 2010. This opportunity could unite the profession as never before and allow us to move away from the narrow politics and self-promotion of the past.

We need fresh faces on the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council: practitioners who care about promoting pharmacy and who will work together in such a coalition for change. The profession needs this leadership within the inner circle of the Council in order to engage with change, whatever the outcome of the Clarke inquiry.

In addition, there is opportunity for a change in the way Government wishes to remunerate community pharmacists for their services. The historical differences between pharmacists working in community and hospital could disappear with enlightened leadership.

Clinically oriented pharmacy service is the future and many existing organisations have demonstrable experience in this field, capable of developing practitioners and services to enhance patient care. Practitioners from these organisations could play an invaluable role in moving the agenda forward and should consider standing for Council.

These considerations will be extremely important when the Council election papers are distributed. I would appeal to all pharmacists to vote with this new agenda in mind and seize the opportunities that present themselves.

After the debacle of the fee increase and a history of over regulation and a poor relationship between the Society and the membership, I would hope to see record numbers of pharmacists voting this year, voting for a break with the past, voting to make a difference and a coalition for change.

Graeme Hall
Leicester

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