2020 National Pharmacy Board Elections
The process for elections to the National Pharmacy Boards for 2020 was launched on 13th March, with the opening of nominations. These are due to close on 3rd April. However, as the Covid-19 pandemic is now established in the UK there is considerable concern that, with pharmacists expending all their energy on working to help combat this fast-moving crisis and support patients and members of the public, an election would be a diversion from the key priority of the nation and the profession, and it would be inappropriate to divert them from this.
Holding an election at this extraordinarily difficult time, which would require any member of the Society who would like to stand to have to complete a lengthy nomination process then canvas for support amongst the electorate, is not felt to be appropriate, either for our members or for the various members of the staff team who would be required to work on the related communications and member engagement activities to support the election process thereby taking them away from critical work around Covid-19.
Given the exceptional and unprecedented global and national circumstances, Assembly have consequently decided to take the emergency executive action below:
The 2020 Election Scheme will be withdrawn and the National Pharmacy Board elections for 2020 will be cancelled.
Those Board members whose terms of office would come to an end in June will be granted an extension of one year to their term.
The Board members affected are:
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English Pharmacy Board
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Scottish Pharmacy Board
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Welsh Pharmacy Board
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Martin Astbury *
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Jonathan Burton *
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Robert Davies
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Sandra Gidley *
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Alasdair MacIntyre
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Richard Evans
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Ash Soni *
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Ailsa Power
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Paul Harris
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Mahendra Patel *
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Deborah Stafford
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Suzanne Scott-Thomas *
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Should these members chose to stand for election in 2021, and be successfully returned for a further term of office, it is anticipated they would chose to step down from office one year early in 2023 (when their term of office would have come to an end had they been re-elected in 2020) rather than serving the full three years.
As the term of office on their respective National Board for six of the Assembly members comes to an end in June, indicated by * in the list above, these members were specifically excluded from the decision making process and the final decision was taken solely by the remaining eight Assembly members.
Members wishing to comment on the above should email the relevant Returning Officer by 26th May.
Returning Officer for England [email protected]
Returning Officer for Scotland [email protected]
Returning Officer for Wales [email protected]