Wes Mountain (left, centre)/Jon Barlow(right)
In September 2024, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) put forward proposals to take on royal college status, pending a vote of the membership.
With the special resolution vote now underway, each of the national pharmacy board chairs tell The Pharmaceutical Journal why the Society should become a royal college at this time, what it will mean for pharmacists in their countries and how it will impact the future of pharmacy as a whole.
Tase Oputu, chair of the English Pharmacy Board
Jonathan Burton, chair of the Scottish Pharmacy Board
Geraldine McCaffrey, chair of the Welsh Pharmacy Board
More information about the proposals can be found on the RPS website or in The Pharmaceutical Journal’s dedicated hub page on the proposals.
If you have any questions that have not yet been answered, you can email them to feedback@rpharms.com.
Voting is open to full members from 13–24 March 2025 here.
7 comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Still not heard much other than soundbites
It should but not with this Charter. It is a recipe for same old same old and no vision of how to retain or regain members and grow the organisation. A new name will change nothing as the people will still be the same.
We were promised the College will Collaboratively shape the future if pharmacy with no explanation of how. The evidence of the Charter creation suggests there is no willingness to do that.
Members were not presented with a consultation on becoming a Royal College, not told the significance of the Charter, nor asked for views on what they might like to see the college fulfill. The Charter is what will deliver and what will stop delivery of things not mentioned once Trustees who are not pharmacists control the organisation.
The RPS currently has four objects for pharmacists and two have been removed by lawyers. Objects have to be short in length and broad in application so to see a 50 word power on benevolence being moved as a 3rd object when this role is fulfilled by Pharmacist Support is a nonsense. To readers it conveys the impression that is the Colleges most important role.
A college of pharmacy must have a bigger role than one for pharmacists and charitable purposes offer scope to see pharmacies and technicians being part of the offering to support communities, overseas student members being retained, new qualifications and CPD support being provided to all pharmacy professions.
My 15 suggestions to feedback have been ignored with no collaboration at all. The Society was bottom up it’s now an impersonal impenetrable organisation. The Journal has mentioned little and what’s was presented has never been investigated and like this article appears partial.
For the person leading the Royal College planning to also run the Journal is not good governance.
The PDA has called for a pause in the vote and may have enough members to produce an insufficient majority if that does not happen. You may have to search PDA to find it and my detailed comments about the Charter.
A no vote will cause chaos and show the Society in a bad light. Please listen to the PDA
I urge the Chairs of the Board to engage meaningfully with the following questions:
The Firetail review was commissioned as a direct result of the Luther Report - the Luther report was published by the RPS BUT the Firetail review has NOT been published. The RPS states:
"Firetail delivered a 60-page evidence pack with a scored options appraisal for Assembly to consider:
Assembly worked with Firetail and the Programme Steering Group to review proposals, consider the member research, and iteratively critique the proposals before making the final decision
The process included discussions at each Country Board."
My understanding is that the National Boards have NOT seen the full review with all the options NOR have they had an opportunity to engage or vote on the options of the final review at National Board Level.
Can the Board chairs confirm that whether the ALL Board members have seen the Firetail review and whether the National Boards have voted to approve the review?
Can the Board chairs also explain why the Firetail Review is not being published so that the wider membership can see all the options available?
I remind Board Chairs what the Luther review said and reflect whether the behaviour of the RPS in regard to the Charter changes has embraced the central principle of being open and transparent?
From the RPS website:
"The review was led by communications consultancy Luther Pendragon and makes 28 recommendations based on four strategic principles.
These principles which will set the direction of our communications and engagement are:
Take a proactive and considered approach
Be more open and transparent
Build member equity and agency
Focus on collaboration and be visible.!
I agree on the lack of transparency and it seems secrecy. I have just seen the UK Pharmacy Professional Leadership Advisory Board (UKPPLAB) announced on 22 January 2025 it is launching a ‘Big Conversation’ as part of a groundbreaking collaborative approach to shaping pharmacy professional leadership for the future.
‘Enabling us to be the best that pharmacy can be’ webinars will be held across the UK from 3 to 25 February 2025, giving pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and wider pharmacy team members an opportunity to have their say on a proposed vision and common purpose for pharmacy professional leadership. They ended on Feb 25th
Should these discussions not have informed the new Charter?
How can these discussions be useful in the future once the Charter is agreed?
Will the leadership body dictate to the Royal College?
Yet again no answers! I understand it was never the intention to have a discussion with the membership about the charter content and there are clearly parallel agendas running. How different from the Society it used to be.
Members have been made so many promises that a name change will deliver to secure a Yes vote but no explanations of how it can deliver. I want the profession to have a Royal College as a strong leadership body that listens and maximises the use of members skills experience and knowledge and premises to benefit the public health and patient care.
I have tried to help it to do that and will now return to watching from the sidelines in the hope the promises are delivered and the knowledge if they are not a once great institution will fade into oblivion.
I will vote Yes and hope these disappointing Charter objects can be changed to better reflect the professions breadth and depth and inspire and attract younger and retain existing members.
Good luck to all.
“I want the profession to have a Royal College as a strong leadership body that listens and maximises the use of members skills experience and knowledge and premises to benefit the public health and patient care.”
And that is precisely the intention of the new royal college. I fully respect your engagement Howard, as much as I appreciated your active support and involvement in 2010 when we split the old RPSGB.
Please be reassured that the same rigour has been applied on this occasion by those who were elected onto the national boards and Assembly.
There are some like yourself, whose experience and wisdom I greatly admire, who are expressing dissatisfaction with the wording of the Charter being proposed by the RPS as it seeks the support of members for its transition to the Royal College of Pharmacy.
They hold the view that it does not go far enough, and should be strengthened. I say to those colleagues that they are quite possibly correct in their analysis, but we have to consider the reality of where we are, just how far we have come in recent months and the consequences of any further delay.
It wasn’t that long ago when there seemed little probability that the RPS would bring forward any proposals to transition to the Royal College of Pharmacy - the CEO presented an argument against in 2022 which was based on his assessment of the situation at that time - but now we are on the cusp of making this a reality.
I consider the proposed changes to the Charter, as far as they go, to have been conscientiously thought through, benefitting from expert legal counsel and approved by members of the Assembly. I readily concede that they may well not represent what might be regarded as the ultimate “gold standard” Charter, but I genuinely question just how important it is that this is something worth striving for.
I don’t see anything contained within, or omitted from, the proposed Charter that will impede a royal college to deliver everything expected of it, and it has taken a Herculean effort by so many to get us to this point.
We have democratically elected our representatives to the National Boards and in turn the Assembly. We have placed our faith in their hands and we should now trust their good intent and integrity.
I too have voted in favour of the proposed changes and for the transition to the Royal College of Pharmacy. To do otherwise seriously runs the risk of plunging ourselves into possibly another decade without optimising our professional leadership. There is no sensible alternative in my view.
Now is the time when we should all be pulling together and supporting what we know is right for our profession.
Hi Steve
We are of the same mind but I had higher expectations of an organisation where the pharmacy family came together in one organisation for the better good led by pharmacists but influenced by technicians, scientists, prescribers, students and others dispensing assistants. To this day the issue of technicians remains unresolved and prescribing by others is ignored.
Why does the CEO change of mind dictate what happens? Unfortunately he and no one else has shared any forward collective vision that might inspire youngsters and other professions to join what is increasingly an institution of aging members and students who leave.
I spent much of my career fitting pharmacy into multidisciplinary approaches and NHS initiatives and to use pharmacies as a bigger part of the NHS with strategies and service reviews.
Is that the College vision? I had a lot of success in a number of Health Boards in Scotland with health promotion and drug misuse and the setting up a Prison Clinical pharmacy Service using a pharmacy contractor for 21 prisons.
To do that required contractors, superintendents and owners and health board agreement. Is there a Superintendents or responsible pharmacists qualification or forum.
Unfortunately not all owners are pharmacists so how can the College engage these better. In The institute of Pharmacy Management we offered corporate membership. That probably would not be possible as a Charity but there could be options if the College had a can do vision.
All that the Society had to do was explain honestly that it needed a total refresh that technicians and others must be part of a College that better met members and public needs, offered more qualifications for higher levels of practice and ask for ideas. That should have generated excitement and interest. Without major change I fear it could face oblivion.
The Charter objects should have conveyed an exciting vision to members, other colleges, Governments NHS managers. It does the opposite sadly. My only hope is that a better one can be developed before trustees are appointed.
Good luck and best wishes
Howard