Exclusive: Robbie Turner, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s director of pharmacy and member experience and Gail Fleming, its director of education and professional development, are leaving the organisation, Pharmacy Network News understands.  

Details are sparse – both the RPS press office and chief executive Paul Bennett declined to comment when approached – but PNN understands that both posts, two of the six in the executive team, and two of the three currently filled by pharmacists, are being made redundant.  

Quite where this leaves the organisation’s long-term ambition to become a fully-fledged Royal College is unclear. Oversight of professional postgraduate education is one of the cornerstones of the Medical Royal Colleges’ offer, and the RPS’s training programmes and mentoring scheme have, for some, been among the key elements of its work since its establishment as the pharmacists’ professional leadership body for Great Britain more than 10 years ago.   

Mr Turner joined the Society in January 2017 after being recognised within community pharmacy for his work in promoting the sector in his previous role as chief executive officer at Community Pharmacy West Yorkshire.

Ms Fleming’s recruitment a year later was seen at the time as something of a coup for the RPS, given its ambitions and her prior role as pharmacy dean for Health Education England London and South East region and her experience in innovative workforce initiatives such as the advanced clinical practitioners programme.