The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is batting for pharmacy like never before, the President of the Society (Mrs Christine Glover) told the audience at the opening session of the British Pharmaceutical Conference on September 13. There was a lot of positive energy in the profession at the moment which was creating lots of positive results. "It is up to each and every one of us to keep the momentum going," the President said.
|
The President: renewed enthusiasm and determination |
The President emphasised the importance of partnership working. She said that the theme of her presidency was "Communicate, communicate, communicate!" and, more than ever before, the enthusiastic participation of all pharmacists was needed. The profession had realised this and had supported the establishment of pharmacy development groups in England and Wales and locality groups in Scotland. This was an excellent example of integration between the many professional elements of pharmacy. The Society had hosted a focus group for pharmacy development groups in June and, soon, would be piloting a discussion forum on the internet as part of a planned development group network.
The Government had stressed the importance of partnership working as a vital part of successful health provision. Pharmacists were also recognising that, if pharmacy was going to be in a position to provide the services of the future, then they would have to become more fully integrated into health care teamwork. "We are seeing pharmacists, doctors and other health professions working together in the pharmacy setting and outside it: both in hospitals and community," the President said.
She added that the Society was supporting these partnerships by exploring new angles on these relationships at every opportunity.
The point of partnership working and communication was to influence the key decision makers, and one of the new key functions that the Society's new director of public affairs had was to co-ordinate a programme of communications with political opinion formers to get the profession to the heart of policy making and debate.
Key developmental issues that had been taken forward over the past year had included pharmacist prescribing, the role of the pharmacist in the new NHS, and the pharmacist's role in the supply of emergency contraception. Here the timing was crucial to coincide with the publication of the Government's paper on teenage pregnancy.
One long standing piece of lobbying that had borne fruit was that, after many years of negotiation with the Department of Health, it had been agreed to extend the adverse drug reaction reporting scheme to include all community and hospital pharmacists.
"In theory," the President said, "the process of seeking to exert influence is really quite straightforward, though in practice it is never simple. We begin by identifying how our policy on a given issue meets the agendas of other stakeholders. We then prepare our messages and take them to the Government, parliamentarians, government officials, patients' associations, local health providers, other health professions, and consumers." But choosing the moment was crucial.
"We may or may not succeed in getting what we want. With the best will in the world you can't win them all," said the President. "But by being systematic, by being seen to be engaged in issues that affect the public interest, we build understanding and awareness of what pharmacy has to offer."
She gave some examples. The Society was going to work in close partnership with the NHS Executive on its winter planning campaign — a campaign to persuade people to look after themselves over the millennium holiday period. The campaign would depict pharmacies as a key port of call for the public to receive health support and advice. And, along with the National Pharmaceutical Association, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee and the Company Chemists Association, the Society was looking to promote the formation of an all-party pharmacy group in the Houses of Parliament to create a focus for awareness of pharmacists and the services they provided.
The pharmacy organisations were also jointly running an exhibition stand at the forthcoming Labour Party conference. This would be a valuable opportunity to bring the pharmacy message home to this important audience of political influencers.
Turning to the Society's relationship with its members, the President said that it was the members who were at the heart of the whole of the New Age philosophy. "Without your continued commitment and enthusiasm there can be no progression for the profession," the President said.
She mentioned the Society's new publication, "Pharmacy forward", a "bright magazine aimed at pharmacists who are interested in the New Age and in networking but not sure how to start".
The President turned to the subject of clinical governance, a key theme in the Government's health agenda. She said that pharmacy's whole ethos was about quality and accuracy. Many of their ways of working already provided quality assurance and matched many of the indicators which had been established for clinical governance.
"Our profession is vigorously and actively pursuing excellence and improved standards through several important initiatives," the President explained. The Society was just about to publish its proposed framework for clinical governance in hospital and community pharmacy. This outlined the accountability structures required to deliver results and explored how pharmacy would use the principles of clinical governance in the pursuit of excellence.
"We believe that this work will enable us to satisfy the Government's commitment to clinical governance within the health service and to work closely with other practitioners to deliver the best possible health care for the benefit of the patient. After all, that's what we're here for."
A crucial element of the Society's work in the pursuit of quality was its complete rethink on the profession's Code of Ethics, the President told the Conference. The objective of the review of the code had been to produce a clear and concise statement of professional responsibilities which had meaning for pharmacists, took account of the expectations of others, promoted professional development and focused on the quality of pharmacy practice.
"As a profession, we have an outstanding record of servicing the public through the rigour and effectiveness of our regulatory processes," said the President. "But times move and the profession must move too, and we have long recognised the need for a major reform of our disciplinary machinery. We need the Government to allocate parliamentary time to enable us to take forward this overdue change."
The President went on to talk about evidence-based practice. She said that the Government's quality agenda had led it to establish a number of initiatives to support evidence-based health care. In pharmacy, there was a compelling need to ensure that treatment and practice were based on evidence. The recent report of the working party on getting research into pharmacy practice was a most timely call for more effort to ensure that research findings on effective pharmaceutical care were put into practice. "The Society is committed to building the infrastructure we need for evidence-based practice," the President declared.
The President demonstrated to the audience examples of the Society's new corporate identity, which would be used on all head office corporate materials from September 20. "The new identity aims to reflect the modern ethos of the organisation while retaining a sense of tradition," she said. The strapline "Helping pharmacists achieve excellence" was intended to explain the Society's role and to distinguish it from the industry as well as to underline the Society's unique combination of roles promoting the public interest and the profession's future, the President explained.
The President reminded the audience that the theme of the Conference was "New technology — a catalyst for change" and that technology was at the very core of practice, science and industry. One important area of technological advancement was NHS Direct, and there were a lot of opportunities for pharmacists to be involved in that. "After a lot of work and lobbying, we are making good progress and have received some very encouraging signals that the next phase of NHS Direct will now have a positive pharmacy dimension," the President said.
She went on to talk about another technological advance, namely PJOnline, the web-based version of The Pharmaceutical Journal, which was being launched at the Conference. "Perhaps the most exciting part of this will be the daily news service, with short digests of key developments within pharmacy," she said. PJOnline would carry all the content of the printed edition and an archive of searchable material would be built up.
The President concluded her talk by reminding the audience that the Conference was about pharmacy practice and science. "After all, we are scientists and this gives us our unique strength within the multidisciplinary health care team," she said. The conference was an excellent public relations opportunity for pharmaceutical sciences as well as an opportunity to highlight to the public audience that pharmacists were scientists.
She told conference members that the Society would host a science reception in November to launch the theme of the "Pharmacist as the scientist in the high street". This would bring together representatives from academia, industry, public and professional bodies and research councils.
The President also announced that the United Kingdom Association of Pharmaceutical Sciences group had agreed in principle to merge with the Society's Pharmaceutical Sciences Group and for the two group committees to prepare a revised constitution for agreement by UKAPS and the Society. This would be finalised by the autumn and would strengthen pharmaceutical sciences in the UK enormously.
Concentrate on effective, real joint working, Welsh Health Secretary tells pharmacists
"First and foremost," Ms Hutt went on, "we need to recognise that the central focus for health and social services must be the needs of individual people and their right to play a part in deciding what treatment they should receive."
|
Welsh pharmacists will play their part
Speaking at the Conference opening session, he explained that 1999 had been a time of great change and opportunity for pharmacists in Wales, owing to the creation of the National Assembly for Wales, and pharmacists were needed on the ground locally to act quickly and positively on the opportunities that lay ahead. Pharmacists were enthusiastic and committed to working with the National Assembly.
|
