Report of Group Delegates Meeting 2.12.2000

Prior to the 1974 merger with ASTMS, money was dispensed from central funds to individual branches each year. The money came from membership subscriptions and the amount was based upon the numbers of members in each branch. It was pointed out that the intention of this motion was not to tap into the Section Fund, which has nothing to do with sunbscriptions, but to seek some monetary support direct from MSF. Both amendments to this motion were lost.

The Section General Secretary, Gerry Looker, informed the meeting that in order to progress this motion, an MSF rule change was required, along with renegotiation of the instrument of amalgamation. A significant number of different funding arrangements exist within MSF, and members subscriptions are redistributed to MSF branches. The political levy, however, was not redistributed.

Continual delay of annual pay awards is one of the factors that undermine attempts to recruit pharmacy graduates into the Hospital Service. When competing against salaries offered by community pharmacy, the NHS salary of £10.4K p.a. compared to salaries of around £19K p.a. reported for supermarket pharmacies, is an illustration of the current problem. It was suggested by K Farrar (Liverpool) that bursaries from NMET monies could be used to support pre-registration graduates, thus increasing their salaries. It was pointed out that Trusts could have indicated potential pay levels by extrapolation of the details of the three year deal offered to other health service employees. A quicker resolution to the current problem could be achieve by immediate acceptance of the pay deal offered. However, such a move would undoubtedly be badly received by members. Inclusion in the extended Pay Review Body as envisioned under Agenda For Change would significantly alter the timescales involved.

The original motion was to try and get clarification and rationalisation of the problem. It was thought that a judicial review would be necessary to do this, although there might be other ways. The amendment which was carried sought to retain the spirit of the motion but increase the flexibility of approach. There were arguments that the amendment opened it up too much so that the time and place might be midnight at the local off-licence, but delegates credited Guild Council with understanding of the spirit of the motion as opposed to exact wording. A judicial review would be very expensive and it was likely that any positive result would be challenged by community pharmacy multiples, increasing the cost further. The meeting wished to remove some of the barriers which cause the problem. The Professional Secretary had tabled a paper explaining the situation, but some amendments to the paper were required due to factual inaccuracies within it with regard to the situation in Scotland.

The delegate from the East Midland Group stated that they were not seeking a final resolution within four weeks, but notes of the steps that were to be taken. It was a worsening problem and it appeared that there was major inertia within Council. It was decided by the meeting that three months was a more reasonable timescale, given that four weeks would be immediately before Christmas, and that there would be a deadline of 2.3.01 for the statement to be produced.

Two GDMs have now been held in November/December, instead of the former date in February of each year. Whilst the intentions might have been good in seeking to encourage more motions, together with an improvement in the number of members attending the GDM, the facts from the last two GDMs do not bear out the aspirations. Attendance at last year’s AGM was the lowest ever and the number of motions was little different from earlier years. The current timetable requires Groups to hold their meetings to consider motions in early September, which has proved to be too early in the Groups' timetables and very difficult to achieve. As no demonstrable benefits have been advanced by Guild Council for continuing the current timetable, it is considered appropriate to return to the February timetable. The Organisation Secretary, Anthony Oxley, raised the possibility of moving the GDM to the Friday morning of the Weekend School, but this was not popular with delegates who could see logistical problems. Siting the Day Conference too close to the Weekend School could adversely affect the submission of posters and papers for either or both meetings. There was also a suggestion that the Day Conference could be moved to be part of, or consecutive with, the British Pharmaceutical Conference. Several problems arose from this. There would still be the problem of the organisers trying to do several things at the same time; other organisations are also trying to tag meetings on to the BPC and finally, if the GDM was still to be attached to the Day Conference, the problems of arranging Group meetings to create, discuss and amend motions would be compounded rather than solved.