The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 280 No 7506 p715
14 June 2008

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Letters to the Editor

New professional body

Win-win partnerships

From Mr D. A. Morgan, FRPharmS

The College of Pharmacy Practice welcomes the assurance given by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Chief Executive and Registrar, Jeremy Holmes, that the Society and its Council are committed to the development of an influential, supportive and inclusive professional body (PJ, 7 June 2008, p688).

We are disappointed, therefore, with the tone and content of the subsequent letter from Council member Douglas Simpson (ibid p688) querying the motivation of the college and the Waterloo Group organisations, which are committed to the same aims.

We would like to assure Mr Simpson that he has no reason to feel threatened by the involvement of the college in developing the new professional body or by the college being one of the partners in the Waterloo Group. Our position, and that of the Waterloo Group, is accurately described in the letter from Mr Holmes.

We totally refute Mr Simpson’s spurious suggestion that either the College or the Waterloo Group has plans to sequester the Society’s assets; indeed this has never been discussed.

The college was established by the Society in order to promote a high standard of pharmacy practice and it has never made a secret of its long-standing aspiration for a royal college for the profession.

We have been open and transparent about our views towards establishing a new professional body. We have participated in the normal democratic processes both individually and in participation with the Waterloo Group.

The public statements following the two meetings of the Waterloo Group were both supportive of the Society and the second one supported the recommendations in the Clarke Report. The college has declared from day one that it wishes to be incorporated within the new body and will continue to support the Society to achieve this.

Having seen the Society’s response (PDF 60K) to the Clarke Report, we recognise that there are a few matters which will require further debate, and we look forward to a constructive dialogue on these points.

The college will continue strongly to support the Clarke Report’s recommendation, which promotes a broadly defined membership for the new body. In doing so, we recognise that it is of the utmost importance to make the new body relevant to generalist members as well as specialist members.

Finally, we fully support the Society’s view that there is a continuing need for dialogue and partnership working with other pharmacy groups and organisations and we should all seek to co-operate together to implement the new professional body.

A win-win partnership is required and we would urge Mr Simpson to embrace this concept and join constructively in the deliberations of the Transitional Committee.

David Morgan
Chairman, College of Pharmacy Practice

Members should meet their Waterloo (Group)

From Mr G. Hall, MRPharmS, and others

In response to Douglas Simpson (“Members could meet their Waterloo” PJ, 7 June, p688) we felt it important to correct some of the inaccuracies in his letter.

There was no involvement of the Department of Health in convening the Waterloo Group. Following informal discussions at the United Kingdom Clinical Pharmacy Association 25th Anniversary Conference in the autumn of 2006, it was agreed that representatives of UKCPA, the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists and the College of Pharmacy Practice should meet with a view to working more closely together

This was given added impetus by the publication of the White Paper “Trust Assurance and Safety” in February 2007, and it was agreed that there would be merit in involving other organisations in the meeting. The deciding factor was the announcement that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society was to hold a meeting to discuss the White Paper, but that attendance was to be limited to its own regional and branch representatives.

The Society subsequently reversed that decision and invited representatives of other organisations, but by that time arrangements for our meeting were at an advanced stage.

The meeting was held on 15 March 2007 at a neutral venue at Waterloo, London, hence the name of the agreement and the group. The Society was not invited, but the President, Vice-President and Secretary and Registrar were told that it was happening.

At the meeting, there was a remarkable degree of unanimity, and we were excited and energised by this. We wanted to publicise our agreement and, as a few of us had been invited to the King’s Fund seminar on 20 March, it was agreed that the college’s chief executive should seek an opportunity to make an announcement at that event.

The Department of Health was contacted on Friday 16 March as a result of which the college chief executive received an invitation on Monday 19 March to make a short presentation at the seminar the following day.

The Waterloo Agreement, which was published by the King’s Fund in its report of the seminar, was supportive of the Society’s role as the basis for a new professional body, but with the involvement of other bodies as well, and that is still our position today.

At our second meeting in March 2008, the Society’s Chief Executive was invited to speak, along with Nigel Clarke and Peter Noyce on behalf of the Pharmacy Regulation and Leadership Oversight Group. A report of the meeting was forwarded to the Society as soon as it was ready, it was publicised in the PJ and on the websites of the College and other organisations.

There is no question, therefore, of the Waterloo Group being secretive or subversive; in fact we have communicated openly with the Society, Department of Health and others about the meetings we hold, and our aspirations to engage positively with the development of a professional body which will support all of our profession wherever it may be practised.

There certainly is no suggestion that it should sequester the Society’s assets. In the absence of any evidence it is, therefore, at best mischievous that such a suggestion has been made.

Graeme Hall
Professional Secretary
United Kingdom Clinical Pharmacy Association

Richard Cattell
President
Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists

Ian Simpson
Chief Executive
College of Pharmacy Practice

On behalf of the Waterloo Group

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