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Stephen Tomlin, BPharm MRPharmS, is principal paediatric
pharmacist at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation
Trust, London
Ian Costello, MSc, MRPharmS, is assistant editor
of the British National Formulary
Andrzej Kostrzewski, MMedEd,
MRPharmS, is senior principal pharmacist/academic clinical manager
at Guy’s & St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, London
Soraya
Dhillon, PhD, MRPharmS, is head of the school of pharmacy, University
of Hertfordshire
Correspondence to: Andrzej Kostrzewski
at Pharmacy Education and Development Unit, Guy’s Hospital,
St Thomas Street, London SE1 9RT |
Learning through discussion, problem-solving and action |
SUMMARY
Pharmacy postgraduate education and training has developed a robust
platform over the past 20 years. Following registration pharmacists can
embark on further postgraduate certificate diploma, master or doctoral
level programmes. The profession of pharmacy works within the framework
of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s code of ethics and strongly
recognises its clinical governance responsibility. Pharmacists undertake
continuing professional development (CPD), often supported by the Centre
for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE), and are required to keep
a CPD portfolio.
Development of specialisms during the 1980s and 1990s relied on enthusiastic,
dedicated pharmacists to work on their own and develop themselves through
established CPD and reflective practice. Some supported their learning
through attendance at specialist courses and reading for specialist university
degrees.
In the past decade there has been a clear drive towards competency-based
practice and the NHS Agenda for Change and the new knowledge and skills
framework (KSF) now clearly require health care professionals to be autonomous
practitioners committed to developing their knowledge, skills and competencies
in order to progress their careers. The new competency-based framework
for pharmacists has clearly mapped out the career pathway from pharmacists
from basic, advanced, specialist and consultant pharmacists. More recently
applying a competency framework to support pharmacists in the workplace
identifies the need for the practitioner to map out their abilities and
identify their learning needs. Pharmacists must take ownership of
developing their role and career.
We report a new approach to developing a programme of learning to support
advanced practitioner development which builds on the positive experiences
of how adults learn, education theory, clinical practice and peer review.
The approach was developed as a partnership between an experienced postgraduate
programme team (SD/AK) from academia and specialist clinical pharmacists
(ST/IC) from the Faculty of Paediatrics and Neonatal Pharmacy — a
faculty formed in 2002 as a joint venture of the College of Pharmacy
Practice and Neonatal and Paediatric Pharmacists Group.
Full text article PDF (60K) |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal