Wes Mountain/The Pharmaceutical Journal
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) English Pharmacy Board met on 26 February 2025 at the Society’s London office. The agenda for the meeting included the facilitated sale of Pharmacy (P) medicines, a review of Society constitution and governance proposals activity, and business plans for the year ahead.
Present at the meeting were Paul Bennett, chief executive of the RPS; Elen Jones, RPS director for Wales and England; Liz North (via Teams), RPS associate director of strategic communications; Heidi Wright, RPS practice and policy lead for England; Amandeep Doll, RPS head of professional engagement, John Lunny, RPS public affairs manager for England; Neal Patel, RPS associate director of membership, Wing Tang, RPS head of professional standards, and Osman Ali, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer (CPhO) Clinical Fellow.
Facilitated sale of P medicines
At previous meetings, boards had discussed whether the RPS should review its current position on the sale of P medicines, which is that they must not be accessible to the public for self-selection. Board members were asked to consider three options:
- Maintaining the current policy;
- Take a new position from 2025 supporting the adoption of the facilitated sale of P medicines, including endorsement of the current regulatory guidance; or
- Acknowledge the change of regulation and build a policy that enables facilitated sale of P medicines in certain conditions and with additional professional safeguards for patients built into supporting guidance.
Elen Jones, director for Wales at the RPS — who was chairing this session — noted that all three options included a call for further research. Jones also pointed out that the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) stance is that the sale of these medicines can only happen under certain conditions, but that ‘option C’ would put additional safeguards in place.
Board member Bayo Adegbite said he was leaning “more towards option C” and that it was “important that we have an updated list of exclusions that can only be reviewed based on feedback and research”.
Adegbite said this option “might be best to do right now with real safeguards for any medicines that might be an issue.”
Boad member Sibby Buckle said: “I work for a large corporate that has had facilitated sale of P medicines for over a year”, and that it had worked well.
“[The RPS] should say: you are allowed to do that, but this is how you should really be doing it,” she added.
Board member Sue Ladds said the Society needs to ensure that guidance “isn’t too rigid and needs updating every five minutes — keep it as principles rather than rigid rules”.
The board voted in support of option C — acknowledge the change of regulation and build a policy that enables facilitated sale of P medicines in certain conditions and with additional professional safeguards for patients built into supporting guidance.
Constitution and governance review
Paul Bennett, chief executive of the RPS, said the Society was now at the point where it would propose to members the proposition for constitution and governance change. If members were supportive, Bennett said the Society would go into the formal engagement process with the Privy Council Office, Charity Commission and OSCR in Scotland.
Business plans
In an update on business plans for 2025/2026, Jones shared a slide showing suggested priority areas in workforce development, cancer care, aseptics and access to medicines. Themes under ‘workforce’ included prescribing — including scope of practice — and making credentialling accessible to all.
Jones said she was “delighted that the British Oncology Pharmacy Association has agreed to work with us on cancer care”, saying that there had been discussions on health economics and ensuring everyone has access to medicines.
Heidi Wright, practice and policy lead for England, noted that the RPS had submitted a response to the Department of Health and Social Care’s ten-year-plan consultation in November 2024. She added that she had been on the medicines and prescribing subgroup of the NHS England and government Red Tape Challenge.
Board vice chair Brendon Jiang said he had attended a Red Tape Challenge expert advisory group and talked about pharmacy’s role, highlighted medicines shortages and how pharmacy can be involved: although he noted that a lot of the discussion was “medic-focused”.
Wright said a lot of work around designated prescribing practitioners (DPPs) had been done, with a round table held at the end of January 2025 with the National Pharmacy Association. She said a report would be sent soon.
Wing Tang, head of professional standards at the RPS, shared a demonstration of the greener pharmacy toolkit, set to launch later this year. Tang also said that work was being done on updating the DPP competency framework and a refreshed QA for aseptic services.
Health inequalities workshop
Amandeep Doll, head of professional belonging at the RPS, asked board members to consider the RPS’s work on health inequalities, and to “think about what we have done and what else we would like to do”. The board broke out into smaller groups to discuss before feeding back to the whole group.
Board member Ankish Patel said the Society was in a good position to tackle these issues because it has members representing the whole medicines pathway, from the production of drugs to the patient receiving a medicine. Patel highlighted the need to consider patients experiencing multiple disadvantages, and also the need for “cultural competence”, including when it comes to P medicine sales.
Board chair Tase Oputu said that from a leadership perspective, a royal college would be well able to “position pharmacy as a key enabler to tackle health inequities”, in collaboration with other royal colleges and “feeding in from a pharmacy perspective”.
Ladds said that the ability to get hold of medicines “sometimes depends on [a patient’s] ability to navigate the system”, and also highlighted the availability of HRT and COVID vaccinations.
“Clinical trials have under-represented groups,” she added.
The date of the next English Pharmacy Board meeting was set for 18–19 June 2025.
