The time is now to create a new professional home for pharmacy

By Sir Hugh Taylor, Independent Chair

Our recent Board meeting on Tuesday 9th December marked a moment of real, tangible progress.

After many months of relationship-building, discussion, wider consultation and challenge, the Board agreed – unanimously and unequivocally – that the Royal College of Pharmacy provides a unique opportunity to achieve the Board’s vision of creating a unifying and inclusive model for pharmacy professional leadership in the UK. We agreed it offers the potential to transform pharmacy professional leadership in the way that meets the aspirations of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians across all four countries, and that we should take the next steps towards achieving this outcome.

Here's how we reached this position:

The Time Is Right

In every survey and poll, every webinar discussion, formal meeting, conference, and informal chat, we have heard the same message from pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, students, educators, specialist groups and patients. Pharmacy needs a stronger, more unified and more inclusive model of professional leadership that supports improved patient services – bringing an end to the current fragmentation – and needs it now.

As a Board, we’re fully committed to the process of creating an inclusive model of pharmacy professional leadership – as our Vision and Common Purpose commitments demonstrate – although we acknowledge there can be no predetermined outcomes. The details can only take shape as the work progresses – but we believe the appetite is strong, and the time is right.

The Door Is Open

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has demonstrated a strong commitment to Board members to co-creating the Royal College through active collaboration. We are very grateful to our colleagues at the RPS for this openness and the way they have engaged so proactively with us all in taking the process of co-creation forward.

The flexibility built into their proposed governance model for the Royal College from the outset opens the way for a genuinely fresh approach that is more inclusive, collaborative and adaptable.

As our December meeting statement outlines, the opportunity to feed into the Royal College strategy as it develops, also means the Board has a chance to help shape not just what the College model becomes, but how it is created and how it evolves.


A Gamechanger for Pharmacy

We have heard this loudly and clearly from many people: the Royal College of Pharmacy has the potential to unite us in a way we have not seen before. To provide strong, inclusive leadership for pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and wider pharmacy team members, to champion clear career pathways, and support excellence in medicines, research, education and patient care. Most importantly, it could give pharmacy a powerful and truly unified voice, inspiring exceptional leadership and strengthening pride in the pharmacy professions.

To reach its potential, the Royal College must be bold and distinctive from the outset. Transformation won’t happen overnight, but ambition must be evident from the start – in the College’s strategy, its plans to proactively collaborate with others and its engagement with frontline professionals and patients and the public.

Together, We Can Make It Happen

The Co-Creation Liaison Group has already shown what’s possible when people with different perspectives sit in a room, speak honestly and listen openly. This spirit of collaboration and co-creation must continue to guide us as work progresses on the strategy for the future Royal College.

The insight and experience brought by the Board’s diverse independent expert members has also been crucial in driving us towards a genuinely ambitious approach, and we are grateful for their leadership in getting to this exciting juncture.

We’ve been admirably guided by our Pharmacy Stakeholder Forum and Patient and Public Reference Group members too.

If the Royal College is to succeed in its mission it will need to follow this example of values-based leadership and engagement.

Next steps

I’m delighted we have reached such a momentous decision but clearly there is a long way to go.

Our next steps are clear:

  • Continue to work with the RPS to contribute to the emerging strategy for the Royal College.
  • Ensure the foundations of the Royal College are designed to be inclusive from day one.
  • Undertake engagement with the governing bodies of the PLBs and SPGs who are involved in the Board to socialise and develop the strategy proposals.

There is a lot to do but in the New Year we hope to be in a position to publish some proposals about how the Royal College could become a more inclusive body and the strategic ambitions which the Board recommends. Any statement on future collaboration would be in principle, without committing organisations to any formal agreements, which would of course take further work and consultation, including with members of PLBs and SPGs.

While the Board supports the co-creation of the Royal College of Pharmacy, we do not own it. We will help to shape, challenge and guide, but the Royal College should belong to the professions. Our role is to help steward the journey, bring as many people with us as possible and champion a Royal College that is distinctive, diverse, future-ready and designed to serve professionals and patients alike.

Change will bring questions and scepticism – but that is no reason to falter. We have come too far to lose momentum now. The landscape of pharmacy professional leadership has been fragmented for too long. This is our chance to put the pieces together to create a professional home for pharmacy to which many more people will want to belong, for the benefit of patients and local communities.