Hospital Pharmacist
Vol 10 No 7 p274
July/August 2003

Fifteen go mad in Blackpool!
Does study leave have to be a solitary activity?

By Damian Child MRPharmS

I had been in my new post for just a couple of weeks and was trying to get my head round the budget statements. Among other things, I noted that the department’s annual training budget was already overspent and we were only halfway through the year. I recalled a recent paper showing that almost half of hospital pharmacy departments had no budget at all for study leave and that for the United Kingdom hospital trusts with a study leave budget, the mean figure was just £117 per head.¹ A straw poll of colleagues at similar local hospitals confirmed that my training budget of £50 a head was typical, generous even, so I had little to complain about.

My secretary came into the office with another pile of paperwork. She told me that before he left, the previous head of department had agreed to send some of the pharmacists to the 2002 United Kingdom Clincial Pharmacy Association (UKCPA) autumn symposium. Would I like to join them? Thinking that this would be a good opportunity to get to know one or two of my staff a little better, I asked who else was going. She gave me a list of fourteen names. “Fourteen! We can’t send fourteen people to a single conference. What about the budget? What kind of legacy is this to leave behind? Was my predecessor insane?” “It will be fifteen people if you join them,” she pointed out. “Another one isn’t going to hurt much more, is it?”

Surely it wasn’t normal to send so many individuals to a single conference? Again, the recent paper on study leave provided the answer: only three per cent of trust pharmacy departments sent more than three staff to the UKCPA Autumn Symposium¹. How could I support such an approach? Would it not just descend into a weekend party? I had to go along if only to make sure that between us we got up in time to attend at least some of the conference sessions.

So, was it worth it? Actually, it seems my predecessor was a lot smarter than I had given him credit for. It goes without saying that everyone learned a lot from the conference programme itself, which was excellent. However, the benefit extended beyond the contribution to everyone’s individual continuing professional development. With such a large number of delegates attending, I think we also managed to get round all of the workshop sessions, maximising our intake of new ideas. More importantly, we then had a critical mass of enthusiastic individuals to help effect change when we returned to the department, rather than the usual lone voice trying to persuade everyone else of the benefits. Three of the pharmacists from our team also presented work at the conference. We were proud of their achievements and it was nice to offer them peer support with a friendly face in the audience or at the poster forum. The staff that did not present anything this time round could see that it was not so daunting and might have a go themselves next time.

You might be familiar with the concept of “six degrees of separation” the notion behind what has been dubbed “the small world effect”. This suggests that through just six intermediaries you could be linked to everyone else in the world. With this in mind, professional networking with colleagues from other hospitals is a lot easier when there are large numbers of people you already know that can then introduce you to others.

I think it may also have helped our own recruitment efforts. Of course, we put up the obligatory poster on the conference vacancies notice board, but it is actually getting out and meeting people that makes the impact.

Finally, it sounds cheesy, but as a team building initiative the weekend could not have been bettered. Hospital pharmacists have always been good at multi-tasking, so despite all the conference work, we still managed to have the party as well. The boosted morale lasted long after the conference finished and it helped to buy a lot of goodwill, essential at a time when we rely on this to keep our departments running.

If we can afford it, I would like to repeat the exercise again sometime soon. Attending the conference over a weekend avoided most of the difficulties of ensuring adequate staff cover to keep the service going. In the end, we were fortunate that the department’s endowment fund could cover the costs, even if the main budget could not. It did take a big chunk out of the fund, but it will eventually recover. We might organise group attendance at another UKCPA symposium or maybe next time try the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists’ annual conference. The British Pharmaceutical Conference might also be good, though organising so much time off during the week might be a little bit trickier.

One of my colleagues pointed out that the hospital’s renal team, the dermatologists and many of our other medical and surgical colleagues usually attend their relevant conferences en masse. Even though we do not have access to the same level of resources as they do, we should still try and do the same when we can afford it.

If the budget or endowment fund in your own department could stretch to it, try asking your chief pharmacist to support a similar approach. It might prove to be a good move. If you really feel like pushing your luck, you could even try to get him (or her) to buy you a drink at the conference bar!

References
1. Cairns C. Study leave and the hospital pharmacist. Hospital Pharmacist 2000; 7: 24-26