This year's British Pharmaceutical Conference, which is to be held at Birmingham's International Convention Centre from September 10 to 13, will be innovative in several respects. The most noteworthy change has nothing to do with content. It is that the first day (the Sunday) is to be entirely free of charge. The objective is to attract as many practitioners to the conference as possible. If there has been a major disappointment about conferences in recent years, it is that practising members have not attended in anything like the numbers that the organisers would have wished.
There is, however, every chance that their wishes will be fulfilled this year. There is not only going to be a free day, but that day will be at the weekend, when practitioners generally have some free time. Furthermore, many practitioners will be going to the associated Pharmacy Live exhibition and there will be nothing to stop them from moving from the exhibition to the conference. With luck, the conference and the exhibition should be packed. We hope so.
To reinforce the message that practitioners are wanted there is a strong programme for them on the day, with sessions for community and hospital pharmacists. Among the topics are unified drug budgets, community pharmacy strategy and the role of technicians. Practitioners will be able to get up to date with e-commerce and information technology, too. There is much more for practitioners on the other days.
Moving about the conference will be easy. All events will be under the same roof. Conference participants had the benefit of this last year at Cardiff, and all agreed that it made life much easier.
There is, as usual, a strong science programme, with such key speakers as Richard Dawkins, professor of the public understanding of science at the University of Oxford, and a series of major symposia dealing with such topics as antibiotic resistance and drug discovery. A science fair, designed to share ideas and show progress in the pharmaceutical sciences, is another innovation this year.
On the final day of the conference, practice and science come together to consider such topics as genetic modification.
The regular features of a British Pharmaceutical Conference are all present, although temporally realigned. The science chairman's address, normally a feature of the first day, will this year be on the second and the President's address on the third. The Government speaker (Lord Hunt this year) will also take the podium on the third day.
The Conference is important for many reasons. It provides a platform for the profession's views and it is becoming ever stronger from a scientific point of view. It is a forum in which practice researchers and scientists can report their findings. And learn from others. But, just as important, it serves a social purpose, a gathering of the pharmaceutical clans. The profession would not be the same without it. That is why we would urge the profession and pharmaceutical scientists to offer it their full support.