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Letters to the Editor
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White Paper
Teaching pharmacies are a crucial innovation
From Professor S. Dhillon, MRPharmS, and others
We applaud England’s chief pharmaceutical officer Keith Ridge
and his team for achieving publication of an undoubtedly visionary pharmacy
White Paper. This is an exciting development for the profession and very
timely given the ongoing changes at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
and in the wider NHS.
We endorse the call for schools of pharmacy, contractors and pharmacy organisations
to come together at a local level to translate the White Paper’s priorities
into actions.
It is clear there are a number of challenges, not the least of which is the
need to influence NHS commissioning processes. This requires negotiation with
practice-based commissioners to enable implementation of improvements in access
to healthcare and to enhance the management of long-term conditions.
Key elements of the new White paper will require joined up work and local collaborations.
Locally in Hertfordshire we welcome this, and have piloted a new model for
a teaching community pharmacy which benefits both academia and practice.
Our
model, developed over the past two years, has included supporting community
pharmacists as placement trainers, implementing new service models such as
community pharmacy diabetes programmes, providing targeted education and
setting up a research infrastructure to evaluate the impact of the model.
It is clear to us from this joint work that development of the model to date
has relied upon vision and goodwill and that an injection of appropriately
targeted resources will be crucial if the model is to be rolled out. If this
is enabled, we are confident that by mobilising local expertise we can translate
policy from paper into action.
The opportunities to embed and enhance pharmacy education presaged by chapter
7 of the White Paper will be critical if pharmacists are to deliver the vision.
We must build upon the established postgraduate educational framework at
certificate and diploma level to provide a platform of short courses through
innovative
blended learning technologies to advance clinical skills training and development.
At
the University of Hertfordshire, the school of pharmacy is engaging with
the Higher Education Funding Council for England blended learning fund
which the university has acquired to work closely with stakeholders in
both hospital
and community on such developments. These will be reflected in our short
course portfolio to meet stakeholder needs.
We are sure that the Joint Programmes Board (chapter 7, p91) will bring
together the specific strengths of all schools of pharmacy to support the
much needed
advanced education and training framework.
In addition, now is the time to advance discussions with local deaneries
to implement interprofessional learning in key priority areas such as patient
safety and the management of long-term conditions. The creation of our
new leadership body is another exciting development and has a clear mandate
from
the department to take pharmacy forward in the 21st century. Soraya Dhillon
Stephen Curtis
School of Pharmacy, University of Hertfordshire
Graham Phillips
Manor Pharmacy Group (a
University of Hertfordshire Associate Teaching Community Pharmacy), and member
of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Council
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal