The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has created a single executive leadership role to oversee both its education and membership strategies, turning two roles into one.  

This comes after the former director of pharmacy and member experience – Robbie Turner – and director of education and professional development – Gail Fleming – left their roles in February and March of this year.  

In explaining its decision to merge the two roles, RPS said: ‘Experience demonstrates that we must be even more joined up in the work that we do to optimise the delivery of our strategic aims.  

‘A single executive leadership position will allow us to better align our resources and ensure a more unified approach that benefits the profession.’ 

The RPS is now recruiting for the new position of next chief education and membership officer. The person recruited will be hold responsible responsibility for the RPS’s educational and professional development offer and for attracting membership interest from a ‘wider and more diverse audience’, RPS said.  

New associate director roles created 

The body also announced it would be also creating four interim associate director roles, two for education, and one each for membership and professional support activities respectively. 

They added: ‘We will continue to expand our education team, creating two permanent roles to support our important work in Assessment and Credentialing.

‘We will also be making a further role in education contract and programme management permanent.’ 

This comes after RPS announced last month (3 March) it was working on a proposal that would result in changes to the executive structure. 

In March, media speculation from the pharmacy press claimed that Mr Turner and Ms Gail Fleming were to be made redundant.   

In However, in response to these rumours about redundancies, Claire Anderson, president of RPS, said any changes to the executive team would not be about ‘cost savings’. 

Meanwhile, RPS has been criticised for a lack of transparency around its decision to leave the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP).  

The RPS later wrote a letter to its members on 19 March explaining the body's financial motives for leaving, also touching on the ‘an additional £53,000 in meeting attendance costs, travel and accommodation in 2019’ it had spent. 

Since then, FIP has disputed some of the membership fee claims made by RPS.