Hospital Pharmacist
Vol 11 No 1 p5-6
January 2004

5 Agenda for Change pharmacist job profiles published by DoH Job profiles for five pharmacist roles have now been published by the Department of Health as part of Agenda for Change. A post-registration pharmacist role and four grades of clinical pharmacist role have been profiled...more

5 First UK DPharm has been awarded Dr Mojgan Sani has become the first pharmacist to receive a doctor of practice in pharmacy degree (DPharm) from a UK academic institution...more

6 Government proposes that pharmacists could prescribe unlicensed medicines Pharmacist prescribers should be able to prescribe unlicensed medicines, according to a consultation letter issued by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) and the Department of Health jointly on 31 December 2003...more

6 Progress made in setting up NHS care records service Several contracts to provide the NHS care records service in England, a key strategy in the national programme for IT, were awarded during December 2003...more

5 NEWS IN BRIEF

Improving standards of patient safety is the topic of a two-day conference being organised by the National Patient Safety Agency (NPSA) on 24–25 February. Speakers at the event, which will provide an opportunity to hear the latest views and practical advice on patient safety, include Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer for England and Sue Osborn and Susan Williams, Joint Chief Executives of the NPSA. Details at the NPSA website

Ron Cullen has been appointed by the NHS Modernisation Agency as head of its Clinical Governance Support Team (CGST). CGST programmes include encouraging staff to promote clinical governance in their workplace, promoting patient and public involvement and improving team working.

Public spending on the NHS in 2002 rose to £67bn, an 8 per cent increase over 2001. Further details available here.

Transitional arrangements to allow existing dispensing and pharmacy assistants to continue working without the need for a new qualification, when regulation begins in 2005, have been finalised by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Further information is published in the 17 January edition of The Pharmaceutical Journal.

Activity and performance in the NHS over the six months to December 2003 and in the three years since the publication of the NHS plan are described in the chief executive’s report on the NHS, available as a PDF file (150K)