Blog by Paul Bennett, RPS Chief Executive

This is my second blog with updates on our work to become ‘royal college-ready’. My last blog followed closely after an Assembly meeting at which details were discussed about the shape of the royal college and how it would be governed. This time I’m writing just ahead of a meeting where Assembly members will be fleshing out the final details on, among other issues, our inaugural royal college elections.

What I hope this indicates is the progress we’ve made over the summer on developing the shape and structure of the new organisation. This ongoing work is taking place on a few different fronts. The first I’d like to talk about is appointments – of key roles within the staff, of expertise to the new Board of Trustees, and of our first cohort of elected members to the royal college and the new structures they will operate within.

I was delighted last week to announce our new Chief Scientist, Professor Amira Guirguis, which followed the announcement in September of a new Director for Wales, Dr Geraldine McCaffrey who begins in her role in December. These hires show how we are ensuring we remain focused on our work across the nations and in areas of practice and research that are vital to the role we will play as a royal college. We are in the process of recruiting new Directors of Education, Pharmacy, Finance and Technology, and we have asked our Director of People to lead on our Shared Services portfolio, which will form a crucial link between the Royal College of Pharmacy charity and the subsidiary business, Pharmaceutical Press. We will announce our new appointments as they are filled and look forward to bringing the new team members on board.

A vital aspect of our new governance is the creation of a Board of Trustees for the charity. This body ensures we have appropriate oversight and remain focused on our mission and charitable aims. It’s exciting to have begun our search for a ‘founding’ Chair of Trustees to lead this important work. We’re working with specialist recruiters Charity People to secure the right candidate.

Sitting alongside the Board of Trustees in the governance structure will be the Senate and three national councils. Assembly will be discussing the elections process in detail when they meet this week. There will be much more to say on the elections as they approach and it’s something I will report on further.

Ahead of this, however, is the task of putting in place the Regulations for the new organisation. We intend for this to be undertaken in two phases. In the first, we will publish the draft interim transition Regulations to enable elections to the new royal college structure and transfer the Pharmaceutical Press into a subsidiary company. In the second phase we will publish the draft full Regulations for the Royal College of Pharmacy, which will sit alongside the proposed new Royal Charter. We will be engaging with RPS members on these draft Regulations through the autumn and will share more detail after Assembly have met this week.

All this activity puts in place the structures we need to deliver our future strategy as the Royal College of Pharmacy. The development of that strategy has been the third strand of work in preparing for our royal college transition, and a key focus of the last couple of months. I’m delighted that our first two online events, with pharmaceutical scientists and pharmacists working in industry, followed closely by a session with RPS members, were well attended and positive. The President and I also had the opportunity to join our Retired Pharmacist Group at their recent meeting and we know there is also a lot of interest amongst retired members in participating in the building of the new strategy.

I’m grateful to everyone that has taken the time to contribute and support this work so far. We’re also holding a members and non-members online event on 23 October, and a student event, co-hosted with the BPSA, on 4 November. Your ideas will help shape the strategy of the new royal college, so I’d encourage anyone who hasn’t yet to sign up for one of our last two sessions. RPS members can also share their views via an all-member survey, which is live until 22 October.

This process of listening and engaging means our strategy development process is inclusive of the whole of pharmacy – vital for ensuring it serves the whole profession. We are building the strategy on our five commitments, as well as our pledge to RPS members about the kind of service we will provide throughout individuals’ careers. Patient safety will run as a ‘golden thread’ through all parts of the strategy.

Meanwhile there’s plenty of other important activity that I might call ‘business as usual’. A particular highlight to mention is last week’s workforce summit, which took forward our work on assessment and credentialing. The focus for the meeting was developing and implementing an enhanced curriculum for newly qualified pharmacists, all of whom will be prescribers from next summer.

The advent of all new pharmacists being independent prescribers represents a massive shift in healthcare – underlining again the importance of creating the Royal College of Pharmacy. In the context of seismic change to the pharmacy professions and healthcare as a whole, pharmacy needs a strong, unified voice, and professionals need support throughout their careers. It’s an excellent reminder of why the work to get ‘royal college ready’ is so important.