The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7496 p401
5 April 2008

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

PDF 70K, Acrobat Reader

• 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

Pharmacy in the media

New investments

From Mr G. S. Phillips, MRPharmS

Peter Lowe (PJ, 22 March 2008, p334) made some interesting observations about the media coverage of health issues and the attitude towards pharmacy. He is not alone in calling for pharmacy to have a much greater presence across the media. This point comes up at nearly every branch talk I give, and has also featured in members’ responses to the debate about our future professional body. In response, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council has made significant new investments in communications for 2008.

The public relations team is working hard to ensure pharmacy’s voice is heard on significant health issues — indeed, only last week the team organised national broadcast interviews on ITN News, BBC News 24 and the BBC regional radio network in response to the Medicines and Healthcare products regulatory Agency announcement on cough and cold medicines.

Since January the Society has worked to ensure that pharmacy’s voice has been heard in the national media on a range of issues including antidepressants, cannabis, no smoking, drug addictions, internet pharmacy, free prescriptions, drugs trials, oral contraceptives, polyclinics and others.

Pharmacy has featured in local and national press, on local and national radio and on local and national television.

This is just the start. The plan is to build on these successes in the future and several campaigns are in the pipeline for the remainder of the year.

To view the media coverage generated by the Society in 2008, visit the online press office at www.digitalnewsagency.com using the same login and password (rpsgb1 in each case) and click on “coverage”.

Graham Phillips
Chairman, Public Affairs Planning Group
Member of Council
Royal Pharmaceutical Society

Send your letter to The Editor

Previous Topic (The Society)