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Letters to the Editor
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The Society
Reform offers a once in a lifetime opportunity
From Mrs A.M. Moore, MRPharmS
I have been asking friends and colleagues to pass along the message
that this year’s Royal Pharmaceutical Society Council
elections are particularly important for the profession. I care deeply about the
future of our profession, and want to encourage as many pharmacists as
possible to vote.
I understand that many pharmacists are disillusioned with the Society, and
that perhaps these elections feel a bit like rearranging the deck chairs on
the Titanic. However, the Society will be heavily involved in setting up a
new professional body for pharmacists, and we have what is probably a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity to get it right.
We need a professional body to represent our profession loudly and clearly,
and unite the various sectors to give us a strong voice. Our profession has
appeared divided and afraid for too long. Together, we should be able to address
issues that matter to many of us working in clinical practice, such as:
• Ensuring that pharmacists are consistently promoted within and outside
the NHS as the experts in medicines and their use
• By active promotion, ensuring that pharmacists are the natural first choice
for NHS (and other organisations) when they are commissioning new medicines-related
services — for example, in England, the new services mentioned in the
recent White Paper
• Standing up for pharmacy to government bodies
• Working with the new regulator to set minimum professional standards around
safe working practice for pharmacist employees, considering issues such as
safe levels of workload and patient confidentiality
• Improving the involvement of locum and employee pharmacists in the development
of professional standards
• Improving communication between hospital, community and primary care pharmacy — for
example, when patients are admitted to and discharged from hospital
• Ensuring that no one sector dominates decision-making
• Critically reviewing all services offered by the Society, to keep fees down
to an acceptable level
These are some of the issues that are important to me, and to those
that I know. There are many more.
The single most important thing to me is that members’ opinions are actively
sought, listened to, and acted upon.
If the Royal Pharmaceutical Society does not make better moves towards doing
this immediately, we could end up with a profession which is still divided,
weak, poorly represented and likely to be walked over. If, however, we are
to work together, and strengthen our profession, we need to have a good variety
of members on Council. I can offer the following:
• A good working knowledge of community pharmacy (I began my career
in community pharmacy, have worked closely and effectively with local
pharmaceutical committees for the past 10 years, recently worked in a
very busy community pharmacy and understand the pressures of the job)
• A good working knowledge of current hospital pharmacy (I have spent the past
three months working on the wards and the dispensary in a busy district general
hospital, and the past five years working closely with, and sharing an office
with, its chief pharmacist)
• A very good understanding of the machinations of the NHS in England, a knowledge
of the important issues, and a reasonable grasp of the NHS in Scotland
• The ability to get to the root of the problem, and to seek out, listen and
respond to people’s concerns
• The ability to get people to work together (most of my career to date has
been spent working across primary and secondary care)
• The ability to get things that matter done (even via lots of committees)
Pharmacists should read the election statements when they receive them,
look out for the candidates’ noticeboard on the Society website
if they want to ask any questions of us all, or e-mail me direct at alison@mooreconnections.co.uk
Alison Moore
Dumfries
Council Election Candidate |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal