Perceptions of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's membership on the Society's dual role

Aim. To examine the attitudes of the membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society towards the Society's role as a regulatory body and as an organisation representing the membership of the profession. Design. A piloted self-completion postal questionnaire with 2 postal follow-ups containing a variety of question types. Subjects and Setting. 5% cross sectional sample of the Society's membership, chosen randomly from all pharmacists whose address was in the UK and who had been registered for under 25 years (n = 1,143). Results. Overall response rate 50.9% (n = 582, 36.3% male). 80.3% practised in community pharmacy to some extent. Awareness of strategic pharmacy documents was high and these were generally perceived to influence pharmacy development. 79% of respondents agreed that "the Society should protect the public". A clear majority agreed that the Society should represent the membership of the pharmacy profession and should be the regulatory body of the pharmacy profession. A minority agreed that the dual functions of professional representation and regulation should be split. 41% of respondents believed the Society would provide effective leadership for the profession. 70% indicated that the Society either would contribute to professional change in the future. Conclusions. The majority of the membership is likely to be comfortable with the Society continuing with combined functions of professional representation and regulation.