Tomorrow's Pharmacist (2004)

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The Society — what is it all about?

By Andrew Haynes

page 69-70

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Chatting with pharmacy students, one gets the idea that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain is a bit of mystery to them. Although they will only be able to enter the profession by joining it, many have no more than a vague idea of its roles.

This lack of understanding may well be because the Society is a highly complex organisation involved in a huge range of activities. It is difficult to do justice to it in an article of this length, but I will try anyway. Further information on all its activities can be found by exploring its website at www.rpsgb.org.

Two broad roles

Here goes. The Society, known to its friends as the RPSGB, has two broad roles. Since its formation in 1841 it has been a professional body, acting in its members’ interests, and since 1933 it has also been a regulatory body, acting in the public interest. Is there a conflict here? The Society serves the public interest by ensuring that only those who are competent and fit to practise can work as pharmacists, and it serves pharmacists’ interests by helping them to be competent and fit to practise. So no conflict, then.

Although most health care professions have separate regulatory and professional bodies, the regulatory bodies are increasingly following the Society’s example by extending their activities beyond registration and deregistration and becoming involved in activities that help to ensure that practitioners do not become candidates for deregistration.

So, in a nutshell, the Society is the regulatory and professional body for pharmacists in Britain. Its primary objective is to lead, regulate and develop the profession. Its functions include controlled entry into the profession, education, registration, setting and enforcing professional standards, promoting good practice, providing support for improvement, dealing with poor performance, dealing with misconduct and removal from the register.

Promoting the profession

On top of these specific functions, the Society also plays a major role in influencing decisions in the wider world and encouraging greater use of pharmacists’ knowledge and experience. It promotes the profession’s policies and views to external stakeholders. It works closely with other pharmacy organisations, other professions, government departments, patient groups, etc. Current activities include advocating a prescribing role for pharmacists and encouraging the involvement of pharmacists in NHS bodies at the local level.

On top of all this, the Society is currently going through a prolonged process of major reform to ensure that it is fit for the future.

Education and training

But let us return to the Society’s specific functions. One of its most important roles is to ensure that new entrants to the profession are adequately educated and trained. The Society accredits all UK pharmacy degree courses and at intervals every school of pharmacy is required to convince the Society that its curriculum is up to scratch and that its graduates will be competent to practise in Britain.

The Society also determines the content of pharmacy graduates’ preregistration training and it supervises that training. And it is responsible for the registration examination at the end of the preregistration year.

Continuing professional development

But education does not end with registration. A pharmacist must maintain his or her competence and effectiveness by keeping up to date with changes in pharmacy practice, with the law relating to pharmacy and with relevant knowledge and technology. The Society believes that pharmacists should fulfil this responsibility by adopting the concept of continuing professional development (CPD). The Society is in the process of rolling out a CPD programme that should reach all practising pharmacists by the end of this year. Shortly after this, it will introduce a mandatory requirement for pharmacists to adopt CPD.

A commitment to CPD is just one way of encouraging practice to the highest standards. The Society also tries to improve practice by encouraging clinical audit and clinical governance. Clinical audit is the study of practice to measure the level of attainment of agreed objectives. It is seen as a key tool for securing a high standard of professional performance in health care. The Society has developed audits covering most areas of pharmacy practice and it helps pharmacists and others to design new audits or adapt existing audits. Clinical governance is one of the tools used to ensure good practice within the NHS. It involves learning not just from what goes well but also from what goes wrong. The Society expects all pharmacists to participate in clinical governance and it offers a range of resources to help them develop clinical governance systems and practices.

Code of ethics

Another role of the Society is to enforce legislation relating to the supply of medicines and to enforce the profession’s Code of Ethics. It employs inspectors who visit pharmacies and other premises and have powers to carry out investigations that might lead to prosecution — although they actually spend most of their time giving advice.

A pharmacist who infringes the law or is alleged to be guilty of professional misconduct may find himself before the Society’s disciplinary committee (known as the Statutory Committee), which will examine his or her case and decide whether he or she is fit to remain on the professional register.

Information centre

One of the most valuable facilities available to members is the Society’s information centre, which consists of a library and a technical information service. The information pharmacists in the technical information service can help answer scientific and technical questions in any branch of pharmacy about most aspects of their day-to-day work. The service is normally free for members. The library contains over 80,000 volumes on pharmacy and related subjects, and receives around 300 journal titles. Services include the free loan of books, photocopying from books and journals and free access to a wide range of biomedical databases, an automated library catalogue and the internet.

Publications

While we are on the subject of books and journals, one of the Society’s biggest activities is publishing — in both print and electronic forms. Publications such as ‘Martindale: The Complete Drug Reference’, the ‘British National Formulary’ and The Pharmaceutical Journal not only provide a valuable information resource for pharmacists and others but also generate a large income that helps to keep the Society’s membership fees well below those of comparable professional bodies. For those who do not already know, I should point out that The Pharmaceutical Journal is sent free to all members every week.

Support for pharmacists

Finally, the Society offers support for pharmacists with problems. Its Benevolent Fund is a registered charity that which offers financial support to those who have fallen on hard times. Birdsgrove House is a country retreat for those in need of rest, recuperation or convalescence. Within its grounds is a special unit for treating health professionals and family members with alcohol or drug-related problems. Pharmacists with drug or alcohol problems also have access to support from the Pharmacists Health Support Programme, and those suffering from stress can obtain advice from the Listening Friends Scheme. Both these confidential schemes were set up by the Society but operate independently.