The National Association of Women Pharmacists (NAWP) has announced Naina Chotai will be its 48th president.

She will be the first president of the 115-year-old organisation since it dissolved as an independent body and joined the Pharmacists’ Defence Association (PDA) earlier this year.

Ms Chotai is a community and locum pharmacist who also runs a consultancy service, which works to provide professional support to independent pharmacist-owners in London and the south east.

Ms Chotai, who will succeed president Anita White, said she was ‘honoured’ to have been selected as the next president.

As part of her role, Ms Chotai will chair meetings, be a spokesperson for the association, host workshops and serve on the PDA Equality Council, alongside the chairs of the other PDA equality networks.

'Advance gender equality'

Commenting on her appointment, Ms Chotai said: ‘Together with the rest of the talented elected team, we will work to advance gender equality and to empower women pharmacists to realise their full potential.

‘As the president of the NAWP network, I will work tirelessly to raise the profile of women pharmacists, by being educationally, socially and politically active.’

Paul Day, director of the PDA told the Pharmacist that he was forward to working with Naina and officers from the organisation’s other networks to ‘advance equality issues in pharmacy.’

Statistics from the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) suggest that as of 2017, 61% of all registered pharmacists in the UK identified as female. Since the NAWP joined the PDA, over 600 women, have become members of the association.

Mr Day added that the PDA were delighted with the recent increase in NAWP members and that it was ‘already a successful part of [the] organisation’.

He added; ‘Having officers elected ensures that the network has an influential voice too. The programme of activity for NAWP was of course delayed by the pandemic, but we are developing lots more exciting activity for the coming period.’