The Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s (RPS’s) national pharmacy boards gathered for their summer meetings on 18 and 19 June 2024, held in person at Cadbury House in Yatton, Bristol.
On the afternoon of Tuesday 19 June, the three national boards met separately to affirm the positions of chair and their nominations to the RPS Assembly. On the Welsh Pharmacy Board (WPB), Geraldine McCaffrey continues as chair, beginning her second term in office, and Eleri Schiavone was confirmed as Assembly representative. On the Scottish Pharmacy Board (SPB), Jonathan Burton was elected as chair and Audrey Thompson elected to Assembly. In England, Tase Oputu continues as chair of the English Pharmacy Board (EPB) and three board members — Adebayo Adegbite, Danny Bartlett and Matthew Prior — were elected to Assembly.
In the evening of 19 June 2024, the RPS Charter Award was presented to Ade Williams, director and superintendent pharmacist of MJ Williams Pharmacy Group and lead prescribing pharmacist at Bedminster Pharmacy in Bristol. The Charter Award is presented to an individual in recognition of work for the Society and the wider profession in promoting the interests of pharmacy at an outstanding level. The award is only awarded if there is a suitable candidate and is not presented every year.
Williams received his MBE in January 2022 in recognition of services to the NHS and the community in South Bristol, particularly during COVID-19. Receiving the award to a standing ovation, Williams said he felt “humbled” and thanked his pharmacy colleagues, in particular those at Bedminster Pharmacy and the RPS.
England
Paul Gillis
Opening EPB’s meeting, Oputu welcomed all members, particularly those newly elected and joining their first meeting.
James Davies, director for RPS England, said that since a discussion on emergency hormonal contraception (EHC) at the previous meeting, the Society had worked with other bodies to prepare statement around the issue, due to be published shortly. The statement, calling for a national EHC service in England, was published on 25 June 2024.
The board also discussed whether its composition should include sectoral places, with Davies noting that the composition of the EPB is reviewed on an annual basis to ensure good representation. Board member Brendon Jiang said that it was “right that we review and there is a good spread [at the moment], so I am happy to suggest we take no further action”.
Similar views were expressed by several other EPB members and Oputu noted that there “is an element of chance that we now have a good spread, so it’s good that we review” on a regular basis.
Wales
Paul Gillis
Iwan Hughes, head of external relations at RPS Wales, gave a strategy update to the WPB. He updated board members on a results of an audit of Senedd (Welsh Parliament) member engagement, conducted by external consultancy Camlas, which asked 15 members of the Senedd (MSs) about their engagement with RPS and awareness of issues facing pharmacy.
Since the audit was most recently conducted in 2022, Hughes said the results showed an improvement in MSs views on the RPS’s reputation, communications and visibility in policy development. He explained that this could be attributed to several factors, including the Society’s regular presence at the Senedd and arrangements made for MSs to make constituency visits to pharmacists at work.
As a professional leadership body, we need to be credible, so it would be OK to change position on emerging evidence
Eleri Schiavone, member of the Welsh Pharmacy Board
Hughes said the Society would build on this growth and develop some core policy asks to focus on for the next years, to be agreed at the board meeting in September 2024. These would inform strategy for briefings, Senedd events and visits.
In an update on ‘Pharmacy: delivering a healthier Wales’, Elen Jones, director for RPS Wales, and Alwyn Fortune, policy and engagement lead at RPS Wales, talked about goal-setting between now and 2028. In 2025, the RPS plans to carry out stakeholder engagment in the early part of the year, followed by drafting a set of goal, which will be sent to the Welsh Pharmaceutical Committee for approval at the end of the year.
Scotland
Paul Gillis
The SPB discussed the Scottish government’s ‘Women’s health plan‘, noting that the current plan covers 2021–2024 and is therefore coming to an end. The board wanted to ensure the role of pharmacists was recognised within the next plan and asked to consider the role of medicines in women’s health and where are the gaps are; where pharmacists are needed; the services pharmacists could offer and what role could be played in the next plan.
Burton noted that there was “an opportunity to do a substantial piece of work about what pharmacy can offer”.
Board member Jill Swann said that “in Ayrshire, we have a women’s health pharmacist”, adding that there has been “interest from other boards in how to replicate that”.
Fiona McIntyre, practice and policy lead for RPS Scotland, said: “Women are more than a reproductive system: for example, women have greater caring responsibilities that can impact on how they access healthcare.”
It was agreed that members would be reached out to at a suitable time for their views on current challenges and what they would like the Society to do.
Joint meeting of boards
Open sale of P medicines in community pharmacy
The final item of open business was a joint meeting of the three national pharmacy boards on the open sale of Pharmacy (P) medicines in community pharmacy, and a discussion of the RPS’s current policy on this.
Boards were asked to discuss whether the current RPS position — that P medicines must not be accessible to the public by self-selection — is still a valid position and whether this position in relation to the open sale and supply of P medicines should be changed in line with evolving practice.
The session began with presentations from Claire Nevinson, superintendent pharmacist for Boots UK, and Roz Gittins, chief pharmacy officer and deputy registrar at the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC).
Nevinson spoke about work Boots had done to redesign the pharmacy space in a number of stores around the UK, with relevance to access to P medicines. Nevinson said Boots was “committed to protecting the category, but we want customers to understand that category”. She described some store design features, including till restrictions, so that P medicines can only be purchased at a pharmacy till.
The stores have also introduced a new healthcare specialist role with its own Boots training programme, professional guidance and set of standards.
Sibby Buckle, a member of the EPB, commented that, in her experience of working as a pharmacist in a pharmacy, there was a more clinical and secure feeling, which patients appreciated. In her view, it was “a bit of a misnomer” in calling it ‘self-selection’ — “I call it ‘facilitated selection’”.
Gittins said the GPhC was “not there to stifle innovation” but would make sure professional guidance is taken into account and would take enforcement action if needed.
She also noted that P medicine self-selection in terms of regulation is not explicitly excluded and that it was important that the Responsible Pharmacist feels empowered to refuse a sale when need be.
Discussing the Society’s current position, Steve Churton, a member of the EPB, said it should “should support pharmacists and teams to interpret the position of GPhC for the best of their patients”.
Lucy Dixon, a member of the SPB, said any statement should “make specific reference to online sales” and consider the remote and rural experience.
Eleri Schiavone, a member of the WPB, added: “As a professional leadership body, we need to be credible, so it would be OK to me to change position on emerging evidence.”
In summary
Summing up the discussion, Oputu said she felt a general consensus that it was “time for us to look at this policy statement”.
On 20 June 2024, the RPS published a statement on self-selection of P medicines, saying that it was “continuing to consider our current position, which is now clearly at odds with the regulator”
“We will be issuing a call for evidence very shortly to ensure any potential forthcoming changes to our professional guidance are truly evidence based.”
- The next national pharmacy board meetings will take place in September 2024
