On 28 July 2023, Patricia Hoare (née Willday), aged 77 years, of Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire. Mrs Hoare registered with the Society in 1968 and became a Fellow in 2001.
Tribute
We were shocked and saddened to hear of the sudden death of Patricia (Pat) Hoare.
We had known her as a colleague and friend for over thirty years, initially through the committee of the former Chiltern region of the then Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain (RPSGB); a link which culminated in the region being asked to form the Local Organising Committee for the British Pharmaceutical Conference (BPC) in Reading in 1993, the last time a local committee was involved in organising the BPC.
Pat played a key role in the conference organisation and was our fundraiser, a task at which she was very successful, making the job of treasurer of the committee so much easier. She frequently challenged how things had traditionally happened in organising the conference, and the classic response from RPSGB was usually: “This had never been done like that before”! The success of the conference and the bonds of friendship formed during our meetings led to the committee, with their spouses and partners, meeting on a regular basis for lunch or dinner, a tradition that continues to this day! The last time we saw Pat and David was at our pre-Christmas lunch in Cookham last year, when both were on good form.
Pat showed great commitment to the profession of pharmacy and the role of women in the profession, and this led to her serving as secretary of the RPSGB Slough branch for many years, and chairing it from 1994–1996. She also held the posts of secretary, treasurer and chair of the RPSGB Chiltern region, and was elected to the RPSGB Council, and the Executive Committee of the National Association of Women Pharmacists, of which she was president for two years. Following the reorganisation of the RPS in 2010, she was appointed to the RPS Membership Committee, the main role of which was to review the membership of pharmacists who had been sanctioned by the General Pharmaceutical Council. Her experience of community pharmacy and her habit of asking challenging questions were a great asset to the work of the Committee. Pat was an excellent ambassador for the profession and the Society, of which she was rightly designated a Fellow in 2001.
Pat was always a lively and vibrant person and will be greatly missed by her many friends and colleagues, both locally and nationally. We send our deepest sympathies to her husband, David, and to their daughter, Katie, and son, Matthew.
Ian Simpson (chair), Angela Alexander (vice-chair), Mike Beaman (secretary), David Jackson (treasurer), BPC Local Organising Committee 1993