The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 271 No 7270 p510
11 October 2003

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Concordance summary

Use this special issue on Concordance as a resource for continuing professional development

Concordance is essential for the provision of patient-centred care. Lin-Nam Wang, The Journal’s staff editor with responsibility for CPD articles, suggests that this special issue can be used as a resource for continuing professional development purposes.

The following is designed to help pharmacists through the CPD cycle

identify gaps in your knowledge

1. Do you know the difference between concordance, compliance and adherence?
2. Why is concordance important?
3. What can pharmacists do to ensure that their consultations with patients and customers are concordant?

Before reading about concordance, think about how it may help you to do your job better.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s areas of competence for pharmacists are listed in “Plan and record,” (available here).

This special issue relates to “communication” and “counselling” (see appendix 4 of “Plan and record”).

action: practice points

Reading is only one way to do CPD and the Society will expect to see various approaches to CPD in a pharmacist’s portfolio.
1. Use the Ask About Medicines Week question cards to practice concordance with your patients.
2. Use the assessment guide available here to review the leaflets in your pharmacy.
3. Find out about the Medicines Partnership programme (www.medicines-partnership.org)

evaluate

For your work to be presented as CPD, you need to evaluate your reading and any other activities — say what you have learnt, how it has added value to your practice and what you will do next.