RPS’ director of pharmacy and membership experience is due to leave his role at the end of this month, following weeks of speculation.

Robbie Turner will leave the RPS executive team on 31 March, the organisation announced in a statement published on its website last night (24 March).

RPS did not clarify why Mr Turner would be leaving his role.

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

Following this, speculation circulated suggesting Mr Turner and Gail Fleming, its director of education, were to be made redundant as part of the restructure.

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

She also confirmed that ‘there would still be a leader on the executive with responsibility for delivering on our education strategy’, but made no mention of the future of Mr Turner's current role.

Paul Bennett, RPS’ chief executive, wished Mr Turner ‘all the best’ for the future and thanked him for his ‘excellent work’ since joining the organisation in 2017.

‘Once any changes to the executive team are agreed, you have my full commitment that we will update everyone on how any changes to our structure enable us to deliver our Royal Charter obligations and our 5-year strategy,’ he added.

This comes after criticism of the RPS 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. In a statement, published on its website this week (22 March), FIP said RPS’ claim that it paid a FIP membership fee of £31,000 annually was incorrect, by asserting the membership fee for 2022 was instead ‘approximately’ £25,352.