PJ Online | MM: Faculty delivers support programme

Home

logo

Medicines Management
Issue no 4, p15
July/August 2002

Features

Faculty delivers support programme

This article describes the training on offer from the Faculty of Prescribing and Medicines Management

Within NHS Plan initiatives there are many existing and exciting new roles for pharmacists providing advice/support, medicines management or prescribing services. However, to provide them successfully not only requires a sound clinical knowledge base, but also a broad range of professional and people skills.

One of the main aims of the Faculty of Prescribing and Medicines Management is to help members achieve and maintain specialist practitioner status in this field, by providing targeted education and training in support of personal, career and professional development. It will also visibly recognise those members, through full faculty membership (MFPMM), who demonstrate their knowledge, skills and expertise against the Faculty Competency Framework for pharmacists working/interested in this area of practice.

This framework is in development, but work done so far has highlighted a number of core skills that pharmacists will need to deliver their functions competently around prescribing and medicines management. These include understanding the NHS and its partners, being able to lead, negotiate, facilitate and influence behaviour, and manage self, other people, projects, contracts and resources.

A comprehensive events programme is being planned in support of some of the key competency areas, and to provide networking opportunities and peer support for faculty members. It will include regular conferences and workshops, sponsored through educational grants from the pharmaceutical industry.

Conference and Workshops

The Faculty successfully held its first conference, incorporating the first Annual General Meeting, on 10/11 May for ~ 80 delegates. A second conference (one-day) is planned for 21 November 2002 in Nottingham. The theme for the day is pharmacist prescribing, and the event will offer a mixture of didactic and interactive sessions. Full details will be made available in due course.

The first series of faculty workshops will be held between September 2002 and March 2003. The programme has been designed to meet some of the requirements of the faculty competencies based around effective team working, leadership and ethically managing self and resources. There are four modules within this series, all of which will be accredited by the FPMM/CPP.

Module 1 Working with people I: Leadership

Module 2 Working with people II: Team working and communication

Module 3 Personal contribution I: Developing personal responsibility

Module 4 Personal contribution II: Standards, outcome and innovation.

Each module will be run eight times in different parts of the country in Bristol, Reading, London, Cambridge, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow. Each will cater for up to 25 delegates.

A second series of workshops will start in early 2003. These are being run in association with Medendium, and will focus on the specific skills of project management, facilitation, critical appraisal and epidemiology. Each of these four workshops will initially run six times in accessible locations over a 12-month period, and will cater for up to 25 people. Details will be mailed out and posted on the faculty website in due course.

Attendance at any of the workshops is free, but delegates must be faculty members (see www.collpharm.org.uk for an application form) and a refundable deposit is required to secure a place. Workshops in both series will be accompanied by support materials that will underpin the content, define the main learning points, and offer pre- and post-course questionnaires and further reading. They will be designed to slot into a CPD portfolio, and will help document evidence of attendance, learning and implementation of that learning in the workplace. In this way a compendium of evidence can be built up against the faculty competencies in order to attain full membership.

Further details

If you would like further information or details, contact Annie Coppel at annie.coppel@liverpool-ha.nhs.uk