RPS president Claire Anderson commissioned an independent review in April this year, to understand how members and elected members interact with the pharmacy body and how it should communicate board decisions.  

Led by communications consultancy Luther Pendragon, the report makes 28 recommendations based on four strategic principles:

• take a proactive and considered approach

• be more open and transparent

• build member equity and agency

• focus on collaboration and be visible.

“The themes that we uncovered all lead to perceptions of the RPS as a complex and opaque organisation, which is not currently getting its communications and engagement right,” the report said.

 

“A certain opaqueness about the RPS”

 

Most RPS members believe the current governance structures are “confusing and complicated”, while board members felt the assembly often makes decisions without considering their views, the report found.

Meanwhile, board, assembly members and RPS members “all felt that there is a certain opaqueness about the RPS, which dampens their willingness to engage”.

More than 1,300 members – representing 3.4% of the total RPS membership – responded to an RPS survey. Respondents were asked to rate their ability to participate in decisions made the RPS, which 24.6% rated as “good or very good” and 26.5% as “poor or very poor”.

Some external stakeholders raised concerns that they “were not always asked for views on important topics that the RPS was considering”, including the decisions about Royal College status and leaving the International Pharmaceutical Federation earlier this year.

Other stakeholders felt that “the RPS executive in London had distanced themselves too much from stakeholders based in devolved nations”, the report acknowledged.

Some of the report’s 28 recommendations include:

• ensuring that the RPS always consults members on high impact decisions that are likely to affect the membership or the profession as a whole
• establishing a new protocol for communications and engagement around assembly and board decision-making
• ensuring the RPS should provide regular, clear, country specific updates to members and to elected members on its policy influencing and political engagement.

 

“Report makes tough reading in places”

 

Following the report’s release, Professor Anderson said: “I am left in no doubt that the RPS needs to improve the way we involve and inform our members and stakeholders of the work and decisions taken by RPS”.

She acknowledged that the “thorough and detailed report makes tough reading in places”.

It is “clear that our decision-making processes needs to be more transparent to engender greater trust”, she added.

“Accountability about decisions taken by the organisation at national country board and assembly level are considered opaque at best. I recognise that our own elected members feel disempowered,” Professor Anderson conceded.

While “some of the changes” will be enacted “swiftly”, Professor Anderson will specify a timeline for how improvements should be delivered “as soon as possible”.

A special assembly meeting will be held before the end of 2022, “specifically to hold ourselves to account for implementation of changes”, she confirmed.

 

RPS backlash

 

Earlier this year, the RPS came under fire following the restructure of its top team, which saw the departures of former pharmacy and membership experience director Robbie Turner and director of education and professional development Gail Fleming, to be replaced by a single person.

Meanwhile, the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK hit back at the RPS yesterday (October 6), after it revealed it was not consulted on the RPS’s recent suggestion that it could start representing pharmacy technicians as well as pharmacists.

In January, an online petition was also launched by a former RPS board member calling for greater transparency within the organisation and gained over 500 signatures.