UK wide Commission on Pharmacy Professional Leadership launched
On 13 May 2022, the four Chief Pharmaceutical Officers announced a UK wide Commission on Pharmacy Professional Leadership to ensure all registrants and practitioners are supported in their practice.
The Commission will meet up to four times during 2022 and will aim to report by the end of the year. The Commission is co-chaired by Nigel Clarke, Former Chair of the GPhC, and Professor Jane Dacre DBE, Professor of Medical Education, University College London Medical School, and will produce recommendations for the purpose and functions of future pharmacy professional leadership in the UK.
Members of the Commission from Northern Ireland are Cathy Harrison, NI Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, Dr Jim Livingstone, President of the Pharmaceutical Society NI, Julie Greenfield, Pharmacy Forum NI Manager and Sheelin McKeagney, NI community pharmacist, Forum Board member and NPA Board member.
Pharmacy professionals are invited to take part to ensure their voice is heard.
Hub & spoke expansion: patient safety must remain intact
Pharmacy Forum NI has supported the DHSC consultation proposal to expand hub and spoke dispensing to include new arrangements between registered pharmacies belonging to different legal entities, provided that the proposals do not compromise the level of care offered to patients through pharmaceutical services.
Of the two hub and spoke dispensing models presented in the consultation, the Forum remains only broadly supportive of model 1 – where medicines are returned assembled from the hub to the spoke pharmacy before supply to the patient; the Forum does not support model 2, where the hub pharmacy supplies medicines directly to the patient.
The Forum has further requested the undertaking of a full impact assessment in Northern Ireland in order to understand the size and nature of any impact of the proposed changes on the NI pharmacist profession and NI patients.
Pharmacy Futures NI animation
A new two minute animation targeting all post-primary schools in Northern Ireland is the latest resource that has been developed under the Pharmacy Futures NI campaign, which was launched in November 2020 to support current and future NI pharmacy workforce needs.
The animation is designed to encourage school pupils to consider pharmacy as a career. It is aimed mainly at school pupils at the slightly earlier stage in subject choices/career decision-making but is suitable for any post-primary age.
The animation complements a wider range of assets that have been developed since the campaign launch.
