WES MOUNTAIN/THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s (RPS’s) three national pharmacy boards held a joint meeting on 6 November 2025 at the RPS’s London office.
Present at the meeting were:
- John Lunny, public affairs manager at the RPS;
- Alwyn Fortune, policy and engagement lead at RPS Wales;
- Iwan Hughes, public affairs and policy executive at RPS Wales;
- Ross Barrow, head of external relations at RPS Scotland;
- Heidi Wright, English practice and policy lead at the RPS; and
- Karen Baxter, deputy chief executive of the RPS.
Apologies were received from English Pharmacy Board (EPB) members Ewan Maule and Brendon Jiang, Scottish Pharmacy Board (SPB) member Richard Shearer, and Welsh Pharmacy Board (WPB) members Rafia Jamil, Rhian Lloyd-Evans and Gareth Hughes.
Constitution and governance update
Baxter said that over the past few months, focus had been on creating the Pharmaceutical Press subsidiary, which requires financial and legal advice. A “superboard”, comprising non-executive directors, had been convened to advise, ask questions and feed back. She said that the RPS Assembly would be informed of progress at the November 2025 meeting.
Baxter explained that on milestone three of the process — the creation of the royal college — there is a focus on drafting regulations, which involves taking model charity guidance and “making it amenable to our way of operating”.
A “deep draft and sign-off” will go to Assembly in November 2025, Baxter explained, with a hope to gazette the regulations at the beginning of 2026, which involves a 60-day gazetting period.
She added that a draft strategy for the royal college would be signed off by the new trustee board “as soon as possible after the launch of the royal college” in April 2026.
Inclusion and diversity consultation update
Maruf Ahmed, inclusion and diversity (I&D) intern at the RPS, updated attendees on the outcomes of a recent I&D consultation. He explained that this was undertaken following previous surveys in 2019 and 2023 to inform the next steps of the Society’s I&D strategy.
Ahmed said that the demographic of the 2023 survey was not representative of the pharmacy workforce. The latest survey was an “opportunity to be more targeted, but findings remain consistent with previous surveys, showing that systematic issues remain”.
Ahmed also revealed that just under one-third (31%) of respondents had experienced discrimination, while the most common experiences of discrimination centred on race, culture and disability, and 15% of respondents had faced discrimination owing to caring responsibilities. However, more than 50% of respondents who said they had personally experienced discrimination at work did not report it, with reasons including lack of support, fear of backlash and, in community, sometimes the lack of a system in place to report.
“We have multiple years of repeated results. This is reality for a significant number of respondents,” Ahmed said.
Amandeep Doll, director for England at the RPS, thanked Ahmed for his work and said that the new strategy would be published in April 2026, after the royal college launch.
Sue Ladds, member of the EPB, asked what the royal college would do to address this, given the similarity of results with previous surveys. Doll said that previous work around the Inclusion and Wellbeing Pledge and micro-aggressions had worked well, and the royal college would look at how we can adapt and build on those for different areas.
She also noted that the Action in Belonging, Culture and Diversity (ABCD) group now has over 600 members, who can help “establish what would be helpful”, as well as continue to work with the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), NHS England and others.
Amina Slimani-Fersia, member of the SPB and RPS mentor, said that when addressing discrimination, a reverse mentoring platform within the RPS would be helpful.
Tase Oputu, chair of the EPB, said she would worry about a loss of urgency on the issue.
“As we move to a royal college, be sure that we have clear policy asks and are amplifying those particular asks,” she said.
Oputu also cautioned “not to embed it through other workstreams: be clear and loud about this. Model the behaviours”.
Doll responded that there is “absolutely no intent to disinvest from this — we want it to be intrinsic, so it does get the focus you are asking for”.
Engagement update
Neal Patel, associate director of membership at the RPS, and Asra Ahmed, acting head of professional engagement and belonging at the RPS, asked board members for their input on themes for the Society’s 2026 conferences. In 2024, Ahmed explained that there had been a Midlands conference, the first Scotland conference and the Welsh conference, which had been going on for several years.
She also outlined plans for an I&D conference on 5 June 2026, in partnership with Pharmacy Business.
“We want to start something and see if we can collaborate with another organisation,” Patel said.
On possible themes, Ahmed suggested three options to start: a link to the Royal College of Pharmacy’s five commitments, a focus on the three shifts: hospital to community, analogue to digital, treatment to prevention, defined by the NHS ten-year plan for England, or something else.
Matthew Prior, member of the EPB, said that in his view, it would be the royal college, given that “it’s our first year as a royal college”.
Audrey Thompson, member of the SPB agreed, suggesting one of the five commitments could be taken as a headline.
Dylan Jones, member of the WPB, also suggested prescribing. “IP work needs to be heavily integrated into the royal college element, because it’s going to be crucial to us all going forward,” he said, adding that weekend conferences are much easier for community pharmacists to attend.
Aesthetic practice and pharmacy refresh
Elspeth Boxall, Scottish pharmacy clinical leadership fellow, said that since the Society’s current policy on aesthetic practice and pharmacy was published in 2019, there had been changes relating to non-surgical procedures that affect practice, including a GPhC update to guidance for prescribers around aesthetics in April 2025. There also an increase in the number of questions on the matter to the RPS support line, she said.
Boxall added that the updated policy would incorporate UK and Scottish government consultation outcomes, which will follow a review of the current pharmacy landscape, engagement with key stakeholders and benchmarking against the activity of other professional organisations. She said an updated statement was expected to be ready for review by June 2026.
Jill Swann, vice chair of the SPB, asked if pharmacy technicians are “involved in any touchpoints in this?”, which Boxall said was “worth exploring”.
Macmillan update
Sheetal Ladva, the chief pharmaceutical officer’s clinical fellow, outlined a joint project between RPS and Macmillan — which is in its early stages — to improve outcomes for people with cancer and other long-term conditions. More than two-thirds (70%) of cancer patients have at least one other long-term condition — for example, obesity, hypertension or mental illness — and are at increased risk of falls, hospital readmission, poor medicines adherence and problematic polypharmacy, she said.
Ladva added that cancer diagnosis can be delayed with symptoms misattributed to existing conditions.
“The challenge is to reduce complexity and deliver care that supports rather than overwhelm the patients,” she said, pointing out that community pharmacists support prevention and early detection; primary care pharmacists can optimise medicines; and hospital pharmacists can lead clinical care and prescribing.
Ladva said she is engaging with the British Oncology Pharmacy Association, and her fellowship will be for ten months. Outputs could include best practice guidance, practical toolkits and patient support resources, she added.
Liz Hallett, member of the WPB, raised the inclusion of the “voice of people after successful cancer treatment” and the long-term effects of immunotherapy. Catriona Sinclair, member of the SPB, said if Macmillan want to improve patient outcomes, then “they need to know what good looks like. There are countries with much better outcomes; what are they doing?”
Sibby Buckle, member of the EPB, said that in her experience, there can be a “lack of confidence in the profession to talk to people on cancer medicines — all pharmacists should be able to become Macmillan pharmacists”.
Policy update
Wright said that the Society’s policy on access to controlled drugs in care homes would be published soon. Fortune added that a review of pharmacy professionals working in and for general practice in Wales was underway, with Ankish Patel, member of the EPB, as lead author.
This follows the earlier review focused on hospitals in Wales, with a first draft expected by the end of March 2026, said Fortune. It will map the current workforce, their roles, scope of practice and clinical activities, and barriers to delivery of care, which include evidence-based recommendations for future development, he added.
Any other business
On 5 November 2025, Doll gave evidence to the House of Lords Public Services Committee inquiry into medicines security from a secondary care perspective. She said it was a “good opportunity to highlight what our members have told us” around patient experiences, the need for pharmacy leadership in this space and for more resources to support that leadership, as well as the need for more visible data within system.
Laura Wilson, director for Scotland at the RPS, said she gave evidence to the House of Lords committee on the same day as Doll, examining the proposed Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. There were questions on the substance used, the management of it and how it would work in practice.
It was a “good opportunity to highlight the need for a pharmacist, the expanding clinical role and potential role in counselling patients, and how that could be managed alongside prescribing and procurement”, she said.
