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The royal college ‘yes’ vote was a “clear step forward” in creating a new professional leadership body for pharmacy but represents only the starting point, according to England’s chief pharmacist David Webb.

Royal Pharmaceutical Society members voted in March in favour of becoming a royal college with 71 per cent of those who cast their vote supporting the proposed changes to the RPS’s Royal Charter and transition to royal college status.

Responding to a question from Pharmacy Magazine on the second day of Sigma Pharmaceuticals’ conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, Mr Webb said the vote was not the end of the royal college conversation.

“It is important that a college doesn’t satisfy only those people currently in membership [of the RPS] but what is constructed is perceived by pharmacists who are not RPS members to be of value and helpful to them, something that they feel inherently they want to be a part of,” he said. 

“Building something that excites people and interests them, so they want to be part of this endeavour, is really important,” he emphasised.

A royal college needs to attract people in and be so empowered that pharmacists want to be a part of it at the start of their careers, not the end, Mr Webb continued. Excellence and quality deployed for patient benefit  should be encapsulated in the professional leadership shown by a royal college, he added.

Quoting from the film Field of Dreams, Scotland’s chief pharmacist Alison Strath said: “Build it and they should come”.  A royal college that provides a home for professional development, gives an opportunity for peer-to-peer support and promotes a culture of lifelong learning is what all pharmacists in frontline patient facing roles need, she said.

“The time is right [for a royal college]. The opportunity is there and now it is really for all of us to make it work,” Ms Strath told delegates.

Offering the regulator’s perspective, GPhC chief executive Duncan Rudkin said thriving professional leadership arrangements represented one of the hallmarks of a successful profession, particularly one that is looking to maximise the contribution it makes to people’s health and care.

“It is important for governments, commissioners and the public to be able to see that the profession is well led, champions excellence, has well organised career pathways, and give opportunities [for its members] to benefit from professional development, recognition and guidance to deliver good outcomes for patients,” he said.

“I’m very excited about the potential for a royal college to play a transformative role in this agenda. We welcome this as a regulator,” Mr Rudkin concluded.

Session chair, Professor Mahendra Patel, called for community pharmacists to be a “key part” of a royal college, not merely “a tag-on”.