The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7496 p397
5 April 2008

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• Society elections (2)
• Devolution
• Medication errors
• Children's medicines
• The new contract
• Community pharmacy
• Patient safety
• Responsible pharmacist
• CPPE
• Education
• The Society (4)
• Pharmacy in the media

Letters to the Editor

Society elections

The future of pharmacy

From Mr H. R. Patel, FRPharmS

I am writing to encourage all Royal Pharmaceutical Society members to use their vote in the forthcoming Council and national board elections. These are historic times for the Society and the profession.

The next two years will see the Council charged with making decisions that will change the landscape of pharmacy for decades. The Society is firmly in the grip of demerger and every day pharmacy is becoming more integrated in the Government’s long-term healthcare schemes.

This is not just about the establishment of the General Pharmaceutical Council and a new professional body; this is about the very future of pharmacy. I believe all our members should want to have their say — and this is their chance to do that. Ballot papers will be posted to members on 4 April and must be returned by 9 May. I hope that our members will make their votes count.

Hemant Patel
President
Royal Pharmaceutical Society

We need patient-facing Council members

From Mr S. K. Bagga, MRPharmS, and others

Over the next year or two the Royal Pharmaceutical Society faces the most crucial period in its long and illustrious history. The need for strong and bold leadership is greater now then ever before, especially as the numbers of small local independent pharmacy owners is dwindling and the majority of pharmacists now practise as employees or locums.

These grassroots, patient-facing pharmacists are bearing the brunt of the pressures that confront pharmacy today. This is especially so in the community sector, where the workload pressures and ever-increasing regulatory burden has led to many pharmacists feeling frustrated and disenfranchised.

The recent letters about working pressures and workloads facing frontline pharmacists (PJ, 1 March, 15 March 2008) illustrate the widespread concern about these issues.

There are no grassroots employees or locums represented in the Department of Health-appointed Pharmacy Regulation and Leadership Oversight Group. This group will have a substantial impact on how the Society will split and on the nature of the two resulting bodies and there are many who rightly share our concern about its composition (Letters, 29 September and 13 October 2007).

Our voice as employees or locums or small contractors, ie, frontline patient-facing pharmacists, needs to be heard so that our collective interests, which we believe are ultimately in the public interest, are not ignored.

The pressing issues confronting frontline pharmacists are:

• Ensuring that workload is set at realistic levels and that extra workloads like medicines use reviews are fairly and properly resourced

• Ensuring that the new “responsible pharmacist” regulations are workable and do not overburden frontline pharmacists and that they do not increase liability for pharmacists for mistakes made by others

• Better and more transparent remuneration by the DoH, with some front-loading for smaller contractors, so that wild category M fluctuations do not jeopardise the viability of small independent contractors

• Minimum standards and levels of support staff so that all contractors (big or small) are on a level playing field

• Simpler accreditation processes which are valid across Britain rather than merely one primary care trust

We believe that the next few years will be critical in how our profession develops and how the public will have access to a pharmacist. Only frontline practising pharmacists can appreciate the value placed by patients (especially the elderly) on the easy accessibility and advice of pharmacists.

This is the human face of healthcare that is increasingly being marginalised and then crushed by those that have little time, experience or empathy for frontline patient-facing practitioners.

More than at any other time in our profession’s history, all pharmacists need to exercise their voting rights in the election to the Society’s Council election. We must ensure that pharmacists who work mainly at the coalface experiencing the current trials and tribulations of this particular sector are elected to the Council.

Shiv Kumar Bagga
Small Local Independent Pharmacy Owner
Woodford Green, Essex
Bharat Nathwani
Locum Community Pharmacist
Pinner, Middlesex
Martin Astbury
Community Pharmacist
Chester
Council Election Candidate

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