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Opposition to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s plan to gain charity status and become a Royal College is mounting as one of its board members and pharmacy’s union for employees voice their concerns about the proposal.

The former RPS president Martin Astbury (pictured), who sits on the English Pharmacy Board, urged RPS members to vote against the plan in an open letter in which he warned pharmacists risked “losing control” of their professional leadership body.

The vote of RPS members will take place between this Thursday (March 13) and March 24 and follows a series of roadshows during which the body talked to pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists about the plan.

Promising to resign from the Board if the vote goes through, Astbury said the proposed changes to the RPS’s charter “may mean we will never again be a member-focused organisation”.

In his letter, Astbury said: “The current proposal to convert the RPS into a charity, the Royal College of Pharmacy, is likely, in my view, to have unintended disastrous consequences.

“In particular, this conversion means we pharmacists will be losing control of our professional body and a main charter objective will shift from representing our interests to representing the public interest.”

He warned “the financial legacy and autonomy pharmacists have built since the 1840s” at the Society was threatened by the plan.

“If you vote yes, the future RPS (Royal College) will be regulated by the Charity Commission and many of the non-elected appointed trustees will be non-pharmacists,” Astbury added.

He claimed he had “been pressured into compliance with these changes” but insisted he felt “duty-bound to raise concerns”.

Astbury also said if the RPS fails to win the vote, its senior leadership “should do the honourable thing and they should go”.

Steve Churton, the former president of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, challenged Astbury on social media to resign now if he feels strongly about the issue.

“You cannot possibly, with a scintilla of credibility, disassociate yourself from your collective responsibility to RPS as an elected member of its English Pharmacy Board,” he told Astbury on X.

PDA urges RPS to abandon 'hastily convened' ballot

The Pharmacists’ Defence Association urged the RPS to “abandon its hastily convened” ballot and told its members to vote against the plan if they do not.

The PDA said it was concerned the RPS is rushing into the proposal and insisted more time is needed for the plan “to be properly reconsidered and amended where necessary”.

“What is being proposed is not just a decision about the future of the current RPS organisation whose principal objective is to look after and promote the interests of pharmacists,” the PDA said.

“It would likely represent an irreversible decision to lose that objective. The members’ assets would be transferred to a new body whose senior leadership would be significantly made up of non-pharmacists and whose principal objective would be to act in the public interest.”

The PDA also said its survey last month of members and non-members revealed “a very low level of awareness about the proposals amongst the wider body of pharmacists”.

Just over 55 per cent of RPS members who responded said they would remain a member if there was a transition to a Royal College of Pharmacy, while over 39 per cent said they were unsure and 5.83 per cent said they would not.

Over 53 per cent said they were not sure that having a Royal College of Pharmacy will benefit the pharmacist profession, with just over 30 per cent saying it would and 16.38 per cent saying it would not.

Less than one in five think Royal College status will benefit them 

When asked what overall impact the Royal College proposals will have on their future practice or work, about 28 per cent responded positively, 16 per cent said no impact, about 10 per cent responded negatively and 47 per cent were unsure.

Less than one in five respondents thought Royal College status will benefit them in their daily practice, over one in five did not and around six in 10 were unsure.

Around two-thirds of respondents were unsure whether the proposals will be good for patients.

The survey also found 28 per cent were “positive in their support of the RPS becoming a Royal College of Pharmacy”, while over 55 per cent were “neutral” and over 16 per cent were “negative/unsupportive”.

Almost 56 per cent of respondents thought all registered pharmacists should have a say on a proposal to form a Royal College of Pharmacy.