Alexander Humphries*: Royal College must fight to win back community pharmacists

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We should all be jumping for joy that the Royal Pharmaceutical Society is now the Royal College of Pharmacy (if you believe the press release).  

This new name will open doors that would not be open to a mere Royal Society. After all, who could possibly take one seriously with its 185 years of history and its objective to champion the interests of pharmacists? 

The new body says it will offer a transformed member experience and, interestingly, will now champion the public interest. Down with those pesky pharmacists! Unsurprisingly, I have serious reservations about our new professional leadership body and where it is headed. 

Weak and ineffective

Let’s be honest: the RPS has been weak and ineffective as a professional leadership body, rarely actually leading. 

It has been haemorrhaging members in recent times and nobody outside the organisation knows exactly how many it has. Sure, a figure is posted in its annual report, but it is never clarified how many pharmacists are actually paying members. 

I’d be amazed if there were more than 20,000. With around 67,000 pharmacists on the GPhC register, this means that less than a third may be members. This problem becomes even more stark when you look at who votes and who is elected. 

Community pharmacists represent around three-quarters of the profession yet have never held more than three seats (25%) on the old English Pharmacy Board. I think it is fair to say that community pharmacists did not feel represented or understood by the RPS – so the RCPharm will have a real task on its hands to win back their support. 

Pressure from on high

How we got here was a bit odd. The RPS didn’t do whatever the chief pharmaceutical officers wanted, so they created the UK Pharmacy Professional Leadership Advisory Board (UKPPLAB). 

They handpicked a group of people to give them the answer they wanted to the exam question they set: a single professional leadership body encompassing pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. And that is exactly where this new body is going. 

Now, some RCPharm members may not be opposed to pharmacy technicians joining, but for the majority of pharmacists who are not College members, this might be an issue. The professional interests of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are not the same. How can one body speak for two different sets of interests? 

Credibility gap

If the College is to have any credibility, it needs to stand up for the profession, particularly against the failing regulator, and must front up to government too. Yet the chief pharmaceutical officers have already interfered with its independence. This does not fill me with confidence that it will be able to stand up to unreasonable government demands or address the serious safety concerns raised by the GPhC’s ineffective regulation of online weight loss pharmacies – to name just one example. 

The College also wants to bring in specialist interest groups, which will have their own agendas, rather than dealing with the elephant in the room, which is this: the Royal College is simply irrelevant to most pharmacists’ day-to-day practice and to their career journey. Sorry, but it’s true.

Devastating vacuum 

If the new Royal College continues to be dictated to by the minority interests of hospital and GP practice pharmacy, its journey into irrelevance will be complete. This would leave a devastating vacuum in the community pharmacy professional leadership space.

The PDA has already adopted the old RPS principal objective “to safeguard, maintain the honour, and promote the interests of pharmacists in the exercise of their profession”.  The association has more members than the old RPS and a much better track record of fighting for the interests of pharmacists as a whole. I will not be at all surprised to see it take a much more vocal position in challenging the major issues around workforce, workload and professional standards. 

New senior appointments at the Royal College don’t fill me with confidence either, as none are from community pharmacy. Will there be anyone left who understands our world, its opportunities and challenges? I’m giving the College a year to show me it is different and has changed – or I’m off. 

  
* Alexander Humphries is the pen name of a practising community pharmacist. The views in this article are not necessarily those of Pharmacy Magazine. What are your views on the new Royal College of Pharmacy? pm@1530.com