The time is now for collaborative pharmacy professional leadership

By Sir Hugh Taylor, Independent Chair of the UK Pharmacy Professional Leadership Advisory Board

Our third Board meeting on 10 September 2024 was positive and encouraging and marked the beginning of discussions about creating an effective and sustainable structure for pharmacy professional leadership (PPL) – one of the two overarching functions of the Board in line with the recommendations of the UK Commission’s report.

Underpinning the work of the Board is the importance of engagement and feedback from patients and the public, a position underscored by our Patient and Public Reference Group. This diverse group of representatives attended a first meeting in August and agreed their involvement in key areas of the work of the Board.

We heard powerful presentations from the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK (APTUK) and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS). The RPS outlined its intention to become a Royal College of Pharmacy, which requires a change to its current constitution and governance. This will necessitate a vote by members and approval by the Privy Council before its Royal Charter could be updated.

The proposals include becoming a charity with independent trustees on the Board, increasing the focus on patients and the public, providing greater equity to the devolved nations, strengthening and increasing the flexibility of governance arrangements, as well as enhancing pharmacy’s authority through royal college status.

APTUK presented its dynamic vision for the future – highlighting the drive for parity of esteem between pharmacy technicians and pharmacists, an approach that equally values the skills, expertise and contribution of all pharmacy professionals and the wider pharmacy team. The future shape of PPL must recognise the central importance of equality and equity – being invited to the table is important but people must also be able to meaningfully participate. Visible commitment to working practically towards shared goals in a collaborative way also requires transparency as a very important principle to which we should adhere.

Board members recognised the scale and ambition of the RPS’s proposals and that, while it is too early to explore this now, the RPS plans create the potential for and enable future collaboration across pharmacy professional leadership bodies (PLBs) and specialist professional groups (SPGs), should members wish to explore this at a future date.

Board members also supported the aspirations of APTUK and the many strengths which it clearly brings to the table. Parity of esteem is a must do. Members of both professions work closely together in teams every day of the week; and the Board recognises it has a vital role to play in reflecting that spirit of collaboration at national level: building trust through a commitment to transparency across the PLBs and SPGs, enabling them to work together to co-create the future model of pharmacy professional leadership.

It was helpful to hear of others’ experiences from Dr Jeanette Dickson, Chair of the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, and a UK PPL Advisory Board member. In a valuable presentation, she covered the varied models of professional leadership among medical royal colleges and these learnings provided constructive support to the pharmacy PLBs and SPGs – which is what this Board is about. We’re here to facilitate and support, guide and advise. Decisions are made by the bodies themselves.

It will be important to think about how as a Board we can help to lay the groundwork needed for further collaboration. The two Sub-Committees we are establishing – described in detail in the September meeting statement – will play an important role in establishing working level collaboration and enabling greater transparency.

These are the first steps in a long journey but it has been encouraging to see the wealth of talent we have in PPL at our three Board meetings so far. Leaders will need to continue to step up for the greater good and pulling the strengths of our PPL together is a prize really worth working for.

In the next phase I believe the Board can really help by thinking about a vision and common purpose for PPL. As we know, values, vision and purpose are crucial to bring people together in any organisation. We shouldn’t lose sight of why we are doing this – and we should continue to engage with the wider group of people who will ultimately benefit, including patients, pharmacy professionals and other healthcare colleagues. Having a clarity of purpose will also help us deal with the knotty issues that inevitably arise as we get down to the detail.

Watch this space as we start to develop an engagement exercise which will be our next step into this new world.