This issue contains the entry form for the 1999 Pharmaceutical Care Awards (opposite p47). We hope that the form is removed and set aside by pharmacists with good ideas who want to share those ideas with the rest of the profession. This is one new year's (or should we say new millennium's) resolution that is surely worth keeping. To win an award in the first year of the millennium would be a landmark achievement.
The Pharmaceutical Care awards presentations at the Savoy Hotel in London are now a regular feature of the pharmaceutical calendar. Everyone who attends says how enjoyable they are. The event allows enterprising pharmacists to present their ideas for improving patient services to a receptive audience in a happy and relaxed atmosphere.
The best ideas - at least in the eyes of the judges - are the ones presented at the Savoy. But even if entrants do not win, their entries are summarised in the issue of The Journal in which the award ceremony is reported (unless the entrants request otherwise). So all the initiatives (save a very few) are publicised and there is no question of the effort required to enter coming to nothing.
The date for the presentations this year is June 23. Entrants will need to keep that date free, and their fingers crossed, just in case.
The awards, when they were instituted, were enthusiastically supported by Glaxo Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd, as the company was then called. Indeed, Glaxo worked with The Journal in establishing the awards, and helped to devise a format that has stood the test of time. Although there have been modifications in the presentation ceremony, and in the entry categories, the essential structure of the awards remains the same: entrants send summaries of their work in a prescribed format; the entries are judged by a distinguished panel; and the winners and runners up in each category are invited to the Savoy to receive their awards.
Glaxo is now part of Glaxo Wellcome, but its support continues and for this we are extremely grateful.