Open letter to the PDA following their statement about the RPS Special Resolution Vote process
Published: 10 March 2025
This letter was published when the organisation was the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
We are disappointed by the position taken by the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) regarding the RPS forthcoming Special Resolution Vote (SRV) of Members and Fellows of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (voting is open between 13th-24th March 2025).
These proposals are made by the RPS Assembly, our governing body, to modernise our Charter (subject to Privy Council approvals) and make us fit for our future as a professional leadership body in response to the changing pharmacy landscape. We have also applied for registration with the charity regulators to form the Royal College of Pharmacy.
After an extensive period of engagement with our members and wider stakeholders about the proposed changes to our current constitution and governance, we are a matter of days away from inviting our Members and Fellows to participate in an historic vote that, if supported by two thirds of those members who vote, would see the RPS move towards becoming the Royal College of Pharmacy. This is something many have been calling for over a number of years and the time to act is now.
Our proposals for change and SRV have been put forward following a democratic process during which elected members of Assembly have reviewed, amended and unanimously approved the proposals for change. In addition, colleagues then sitting on the three National Pharmacy Boards emphatically supported the proposals for change and the strengthening of their professional leadership body.
RPS has been open about the progress of the Constitution and Governance review at every stage. The proposals for change and the principles behind them have been the subject of numerous member communications during 2024 and leading up to the SRV, not least during the engagement roadshows held during October and November last year. The report of which can be found here.
We have been delighted with the number of RPS members who have actively engaged with us in this process, either attending meetings or webinars and those who have asked us questions in an effort to seek to better understand the proposals and the consequences of becoming a royal college. A detailed series of questions and answers can be found here and anyone with a question not already answered may send a question to us using the ‘feedback’ email and we will respond promptly and further build the FAQ.
This is a significant moment in the evolution of the professional leadership body. With the support of our Members and Fellows, it will lead to a Royal College of Pharmacy that will create greater recognition for pharmacy and the scope of its impact, advance pharmacists to provide excellence in patient care, support workforce transformation and put patients at the forefront of our work. We will do this by working in collaboration to encourage, identify and showcase excellence. Member engagement, recognition and community will be at its very heart.
Professional independence is a cornerstone of the current RPS and will remain a cornerstone of the future royal college. Providing a strong and respected voice championing pharmacy to government, industry and others will remain central to our work.
We urge Members and Fellows to exercise their vote and support the unanimous recommendation of the RPS Assembly members, who together with our National Pharmacy Boards and alongside a wide range of pharmacy stakeholders, are endorsing the proposals for the new Charter and to become the Royal College of Pharmacy.
Sincerely,
Professor Claire Anderson FFRPS FRPharmS, RPS President
Brendon Jiang FRPharmS, RPS Treasurer
Jonathan Burton FRPharmS, Scottish Pharmacy Board Chair and RPS Assembly member
Geraldine McCaffrey MRPharmS, Welsh Pharmacy Board Chair and RPS Assembly member
Tase Oputu FRPharmS, English Pharmacy Board Chair and RPS Assembly member
Paul Bennett FRPharmS, RPS CEO
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Pharmacy bodies launch community pharmacy manifesto
This news story was published when the organisation was the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Community Pharmacy England, the Company Chemists’ Association, the National Pharmacy Association and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society have today published a joint manifesto for community pharmacy, ahead of the next general election. Pharmacy teams can use the manifesto to engage with political parties and candidates in the run-up to the election. The #VotePharmacy manifesto and other resources can be accessed from a new online general election hub, www.votepharmacy.org. The hub includes advice about engaging with candidates. Election candidates will be asked to show their support and back a six-point plan to “unleash the potential of community pharmacy”: Fill the funding gap, and commit to long-term sustainable funding, so pharmacies can deliver more of the NHS care patients need. Support and enhance the community pharmacy workforce to ensure that pharmacists and their teams can continue to meet the needs of patients now and in the future. Ensure that patients can access the medicines they need, including an end-to-end review of the medicines supply chain. Rollout an enhanced Pharmacy First service for England, mirroring the highly successful approaches taken in Scotland and Wales. Empower community pharmacists to do more, with an ambitious roadmap for independent prescribing. Make pharmacies centres for public health, prevention and reducing health inequalities. Tase Oputu, Chair of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society in England, said: “Community pharmacy plays a central role in the care of millions of patients each year, boosting vaccine uptake, tackling health inequalities and ensuring vital access to medicines. “But the system is also under pressure, and sustainable funding and support for the workforce will be crucial. “As more pharmacists become prescribers, it is vital the next government makes the most of this opportunity to transform patient care and ensure a positive future for community pharmacy at the heart of the nation’s health service.” All of these issues are highlighted in the RPS general election manifesto. Read more RCPharm news stories.
Our response to Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists open letter
This letter was published when the organisation was the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Following the open letter sent to us by the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists (GHP), we have responded to them and have set out our response below: Dear Rob, Thank you for your recent letter concerning our Constitution and Governance Review. The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) is currently engaged in a conversation with our members and the wider profession about our proposals for change and our ambition to become a Royal College. These proposals are being set out for pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists (whether members or not) via a series of ‘roadshow’ engagement events across GB during October and November. A recurring focus of the conversations we are having at these events is our ambitions to integrate credentialing into the profession; some of the questions about credentialing are echoed in the Guild Council’s letter. We are happy to clarify the benefits we envisage will flow from the further embedding of credentialing and to address some of the other points raised by the Guild Council. The key purpose of RPS credentialing is to protect the public and the integrity of the pharmacy profession through assuring patient-focused pharmacists (i.e., roles that have a direct impact on individual patients and/or patient populations) working at advancing levels of post-registration practice. Defining and assuring post-registration professional standards is a fundamental activity for a royal college and thus fully aligned with our proposals for change. Credentialing provides considerable benefits for pharmacists and the system. For a pharmacist, credentialing can support a standard professional career structure which offers potential for advancement. Credentialing also engenders professional confidence and pride, increases professional cohesion and provides a mechanism by which the skills and capabilities of an individual are recognised. We have also heard from candidates about the benefits they have gained from successfully undertaking credentialing; including increased confidence, improved practice and greater integration within the wider multidisciplinary team. For the employer and wider system, credentialing provides an objective and validated assurance mechanism for employee capability within and across organisations which can inform fair and valid career progression and recruitment decisions, assure consistency across the system and improve workforce portability. It also provides a mechanism by which other health professionals and patients can recognise the level of practice of the pharmacy workforce. We have heard of pharmacists having to ‘re-prove’ their level of practice when they have moved employer, sector, or location, with some having to restart a training pathway from scratch to meet specific regional or national training requirements. This is not efficient or effective for the service, the employer or the pharmacist and is addressed by embedding credentialing in the profession. RPS, in collaboration with the pharmacy profession, has been developing our credentialing model over the last 4 to 5 years and we recognise there is much work ahead of us, in continued partnership with many others in the pharmacy ecosystem, to ensure the full value of credentialing can be realised to the benefit of pharmacists, patients and the public. The changes and opportunities that lie ahead for the pharmacy profession act as a call for action for this change. Medicines, and therefore pharmacy practice, are advancing and becoming more complex; this is mirrored by patients’ healthcare needs. In tandem, the role of the pharmacist in delivering healthcare services within the wider multidisciplinary team is evolving rapidly across community, primary, and secondary care settings, including the prescribing of medicines from point of registration from 2026. We recognise that collaboration is vital in order to enable the integration of credentialing, and we are committed to continued engagement with employers across GB during 2025 and beyond to highlight the value of credentialing for them and their employed pharmacists. We will continue working closely with the Chief Pharmaceutical Officers, Pharmacy Deans and other NHS leaders, and will collaborate with professional representative bodies and other stakeholders, to demonstrate the value credentialing brings to the profession, patients and the wider healthcare system. Introducing a formal progression model into the post-registration space will involve additional effort and cost but we believe that these will be proportionate to the benefit (to patients, pharmacists and the profession) they will bring. NHS education commissioners have already supported pharmacists to engage with credentialing by, for example, providing access to the RPS post-registration foundation e-Portfolio, supporting post-registration foundation candidates through credentialing via national training programmes and funding candidates through core advanced credentialing. We will continue to advocate for employer and system support for the further rollout of credentialing. Credentialing has already been integrated into NHS policy as a requirement to progress to consultant pharmacist roles, in all sectors, including the NHS managed sector, as articulated in the NHS Consultant Pharmacist Guidance. Integrating all levels of credentialing meaningfully into the profession will require collective action and support and achieving this will not be achieved by the RPS or any future royal college in isolation. To be fully woven into the profession, credentialing needs to be integrated into job descriptions, job plans and career progression (including remuneration). We continue to drive for this through our advocacy work. And of course, pharmacists need to be supported. We agree that ensuring pharmacists have the time, space and support to develop professional practice portfolios is essential to integrating credentialing meaningfully in the profession. We have advocated for this through our Protected Learning Time policy and we recognise the need for more effective job planning. RPS curricula describe the recommended level of commitment from employers required to support a pharmacist undergoing a credentialing pathway. We’d like to emphasise that RPS credentialing is not a micro credential in a specific area of clinical practice but the assurance of a level of practice. When credentialing at core advanced level, we are assuring clinical and non-clinical capabilities (for example leadership) which align to the multiprofessional definitions of advanced practice in other professions. Where there is a patient and system need for specific clinical definition and assurance, we will continue to collaboratively develop specialist curricula, as we have done recently in critical care with the UK Clinical Pharmacy Association (UKCPA) and mental health in collaboration with the College of Mental Health Pharmacy (CMHP). The requirements of the specialist curricula can be demonstrated at the same time as the core advanced credentialing process or separately, depending on the pharmacist’s career preferences. Moving away from the question of credentialing and considering the wider ambitions of our proposal for change, we must consider governance. Governance mechanisms exist to ensure appropriate decisions are made in line with the organisation’s ambitions. Our rigorous governance review aims to embed transparency in the way we work and ensure that the future Royal College remains led by the profession. Our intent to register as a charity further ensures that there are appropriate external frameworks and scrutiny in place so that we meet our intended objective of advancing the science and practice of pharmacy, with patient and public benefit at the forefront of our work. We look forward to constructive dialogue with the Guild Council over the coming months as we refine our proposals for change and prepare to set the final proposition before our membership for a vote in early 2025. Meanwhile we invite Guild members together with all pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists to attend one of our roadshow events and/or to find out more about the proposals for change. Yours sincerely, Paul Bennett FRPharmS, Chief Executive, Royal Pharmaceutical Society