Nicholas Wood: new roles will require professional leadership |
Change was the theme of the address given by the President of the Royal
Pharmaceutical Society, Nicholas Wood. Much had changed since the last
time
he addressed the British Pharmaceutical Conference as President in 1993. “All
of us with an interest in health care now live with the impact of constant
change, the pace and order of which was only just being appreciated back
in 1993,” he said.
Back then, he had welcomed the Department of Health’s commitment
to professional audit. “Today, no longer just a buzzword, the concept
of audit is part of the larger theme of clinical governance and continuing
professional development,” he commented. Furthermore, in 1993,
he had called for all pharmacists to be included in adverse drug reaction
reporting, something that has since happened.
“However, even 11 years ago, we were calling on the Government
to reform the
remuneration system for community pharmacy,” Mr Wood said. “All
those years ago, it was evident that the system places far too much emphasis
on the numbers of prescriptions dispensed as a measure of the effectiveness
of the pharmaceutical service. Progress is at last being made but the
development of the community pharmacy sector of the profession needs
to be quality-focused and sustainable.”
Pharmacy is capable of playing a huge role as a catalyst for social change,
he said, but the public needs scientific advances to be deployed optimally. “We
will need to develop existing policies and evolve a whole range of new
policies and practices to meet the new challenges that new treatments
bring with them,” he stated. “The pharmacy profession must
be enabled, through the right public policy and underpinned by the right
infrastructure and remuneration framework, to bring the best of scientific
advances to patients and the public through effective pharmacy practice
models.”
A number of challenges exist. First is the fact that the make-up and
attitudes of the population are changing: the population is ageing and
people are becoming more expert and more demanding. Another challenge
is the patient choice agenda. Ensuring practice is evidence-based, effective,
efficient and in line with the principles of concordance represent a
further challenge.
Finally, a major challenge is engineering a new health workforce. “Crucially
for organisations like the Society, there is the challenge of preparing
the profession for new roles in terms of education, training and infrastructure,” the
President said. “New treatments are going to need a new type of
health workforce to deliver them.” Pharmacists need to get used
to new ways of working and new roles such as pharmacist prescribing and
medicines management. “For these roles, professional leadership
is vital,” he added.
Mr Wood said that, after a year of momentous change for the Society,
the Council has now asked the Privy Council to proceed with its petition
for a new Charter. “Hence, now that the Society’s constitutional
reforms are well on the way to resolution we will be well placed to move
on and deal with the many issues and challenges that face our profession,” he
stated.
The President concluded that the innovations of the pharmaceutical industry
in the 20th century, accompanied by changes in pharmaceutical practice,
would continue to develop and play a major role in the improvement of
the health of society in the 21st century. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal