The board of trustees

The board of trustees sets the charity’s vision, mission, values and strategy and is responsible for monitoring progress to ensure that the charity remains financially sustainable and delivers in line with our beneficiaries needs. Day-to-day operations and management are delegated to the Chief Executive and senior management team, who provide regular reports to the trustees on performance and operations.

Pharmacist Support has a small group of trustees, each of which is appointed for an initial term of three years. Trustees are able to serve a maximum of nine years consecutively, which provides an opportunity for fresh perspectives, skills and experience to be included on a regular basis. We aim to have a board that reflects the diversity of the Pharmacy profession. The board is currently made up of eight pharmacist trustees and three lay trustees. Our lay trustees are not pharmacists and often bring a viewpoint gathered from outside the profession.

The Board of Trustees meets at least every quarter and in the spirit of openness agreed to share a short message after each quarterly board meeting summarising our key actions and decisions.  The Charity has three sub-committees, established to advise on key areas of activity and with terms of reference that are reviewed regularly. The three sub-committees are the finance sub-committee, the staff and remuneration sub-committee and the bursary sub-committee. Trustees review any donations to the charity in line with the charities donations policy.

Legal form and charitable status

The organisation is a charitable company limited by guarantee, incorporated on 27 September 2014, and registered as a charity on 27 October 2014. The company was established under a Memorandum of Association that established the Objects and powers of the charitable company and it is governed under its Articles of Association.

The company is sole corporate trustee of Pharmacist Support, the dormant Charitable Trust  from which the company was created in 2014. The Charity number for the dormant Trust is 221438. The Trust remains in existence to ensure legacies left to the former charitable trust do not fail. A resolution has been passed giving the Charity automatic entitlement to any income due to the Trust.

Our legal objects define the potential beneficiaries within ‘our pharmacy family’. The Charity’s objects are specifically restricted to the relief of financial need or other distress and the advancement of general health and wellbeing of:

• any individual whose name is or has ever been on the Register of Pharmacists maintained by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) (or formerly maintained by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain), and their dependants;
• any Pharmacy Trainees* in Great Britain;
• any Pharmacy Students** in Great Britain; or
• any other individual who is a current Registrant of the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), as determined by the trustees from time to time.

*A Trainee is defined as a person in Great Britain who has successfully completed a course accredited by the GPhC, is eligible to enter training to become a pharmacist, and intends to seek registration as a pharmacist. ** A Pharmacy Student is defined as a person undertaking a GPhC accredited course in Great Britain leading to eligibility to enter accredited foundation training and register as a pharmacist.