Celebrating our first year
One year ago today the new dedicated professional body for pharmacists and pharmacy was established. At the time we made a commitment that we would continue to build on the proud heritage of the Society as we moved forward and that our members’ interests would be at the core of all our activities. We promised to work hard to unite the profession and ensure the views of the membership were heard at every level.
Helen Gordon on the Royal Pharmaceuticval Society one year on
One year on, it seems an appropriate time to review what we have delivered for our members in our first year.
Supporting you in your practice | Timely, relevant information | Raising the profile of pharmacy with the public
Raising the profile of pharmacy with other health professionals | Government activity
Building the evidence base for the profession | Supporting members' development
Supporting you in your practice
Our members have consistently told us through our Attitude Tracker membership survey that providing an online and telephone support service is one of the most important things they expected from their professional body – over 65% of those questioned rate the service as important or very important, with nearly 80% of those that have used the service finding it useful or very useful.
RPS Support has been designed to support pharmacists in their day to day jobs, including support for CPD, ethical dilemmas, clinical and science queries, research and audit support, mentoring. The service is available online, by email and by phone and members have responded to this greater flexibility, accessing support when and where they need it, in a way that they choose.
Over 80% of our members rate professional guidance and support tools as important or very important. We believe that nearly half of our members have accessed our support and guidance tools, with 90% rating them as useful to their practice. We are producing on average two new pieces of guidance every month as part of our ongoing support for members.
This year we also launched a new look Medicines, Ethics and Practice – relaunched and revamped to reflect the new role of the Society. We know from our research that some 80% of members have already used their MEP and over 95% have found it useful. Designed to help pharmacists practise confidently and professionally, it puts professionalism and professional judgement at the heart of the decision-making process. An indispensable guide for any pharmacist and the initial feedback from members has been extremely positive. Here’s just some of the comments that we’ve received:
'I think the new MEP is great, fantastic new format and great content, I feel it makes pharmacy law and ethics much more accessible and clear. Well done, it must have taken a lot of hard work to produce it so well.'
'Thank you for the new MEP 35 guide. I have to say it's fantastic compared to previous editions, with simple terminology/user friendly guide.'
'Easy to read and understand. Clearly laid out so can find information more easily.'
Our engagement and communication with members has never been better – we regularly communicate with over 30,000 members each month through E-news, and have dealt with over 40,000 member enquiries. In a recent survey nearly 90% of members who had received our e-alerts had found them either useful or very useful. Building on this success, this month we are launching a new alert service – RPS Support alerts, providing members with a weekly summary of the latest medicines and device alerts, patient safety notices, chief medical officer letters and other important communications concerning patient safety. If you’ve not already signed up to receive these you can do so in the My Profile section of our website.
It’s important that members are up to date with all the changes that take place within pharmacy.
Over the past year we’ve taken a leading role in keeping our members updated.
Here are just a few of the alerts we’ve sent out:
- Nurofen Plus Recall – we emailed members first thing on Saturday morning with the latest information
- Optimal doses of paracetamol in children – we emailed members on Sunday evening so that they had the information before it was released to the media. This meant 10,000 members had the most up to date information before they went to work on Monday morning.
- Seasonal influenza – we set up a webpage which acted as a hub for information, collating information from various sources and channels, in what was a constantly changing situation. This was updated daily over the Christmas and New Year period, when many of our members were working. As well as updating the webpage we also sent e-alerts out to members informing them of the changes – this included one which was sent out on Christmas Eve.
- NHS Community Pharmacy Contractual Framework Service Developments (England) – we are using a similar approach for the new contract changes in England, acting as the hub of information for members, so they only need to go to one place to find all the information they need.
Raising the profile of pharmacy with the public
Let me now turn to how we are making sure the profession has its share of voice in the media.
Firstly we are now working with the profession like never before – our experts and our members and we have around 30 pharmacists to speak on behalf of the profession in areas such as children’s medicines and mental health.
How about results, well we are now seeing pharmacists appear in the consumer media on average four times a week – every other day.
Nationally you’ll see a pharmacist or the Society featuring in a print story around about twice a week, and because we want to reflect what you are doing and saying locally the same frequency applies if you’re reading your local paper or listening to a local BBC station.
Here are some of the highlights:
Raising the profile of pharmacy with other health professionals
We are working much more closely with other professional bodies to raise the profile of what pharmacists can do, so that it is understood by all health professionals.
Here’s just some of the activities and projects that we’ve launched over the past year:
- Joint statement with the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) – improving the working relationships between pharmacists and GPs. We know that we’re much more powerful when we work together. This joint statement highlighted some of the areas where good practice was happening and showed what both organisations felt was important. The president of RCGP communicated directly with her members about sharing best practice and what pharmacists can do. This is about the Society taking a leadership role, so that the pharmacist working on the ground will start to see changes.
- Transfer of care – A ground-breaking document that was endorsed by four professional bodies (Royal College of Physicians, Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of General Practitioners, Academy of Medical Royal Colleges). This shows the kind of company and sphere that the Society is now operating in. We are at the top table and leading these discussions around making Britain the safest place to take medicines.
- Venous thromboembolism campaign – Another great example of where we are working with other professional bodies to improve the health outcomes for patients. A partnership working group was set up last year with the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges and the Royal College of Nursing to focus the NHS on implementing the venous thromboembolism (VTE) prevention strategy. It is a great example of where together with other health professionals we are providing leadership across the NHS.
Our new role as the dedicated professional leadership body has allowed us to take a much stronger position with governments and deliver real change for our members.
Some of the highlights:
- Scottish and Welsh elections – all the major parties covered the role of pharmacy in their election manifestos. This is testament to the work of our teams in Scotland and Wales in building relationships with Ministers and key stakeholders in their respective countries.
- NHS Future Forum – we were delighted to get a pharmacist as a member of the Government’s listening exercise into changes to the NHS in England. Ash Soni was able to represent pharmacists views and we were also able to hold a listening event at our headquarters in Lambeth
Building the evidence base for the profession
Linked to our increased profile with governments is our ability to provide evidence of the effectiveness of pharmacy in areas such as public health. As part of this we launched our map of evidence, a database which enables:
- The collation of existing evidence and ongoing initiatives that can ultimately inform policy and practice relating to pharmacy;
- The sharing and showcasing of good pharmacy practice and innovation; and,
- Increased knowledge exchange and learning in pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences
To date we have over 140 pieces of evidence loaded on to the map and this is increasing every week. Our Map of Evidence allows members to learn from others, but also provides them with a forum to share your own successes.
Supporting members’ development
In the past few months we have launched our Mentoring service. The online mentor – mentee matching database allows members to access a mentor to suit their needs or to volunteer their services as a mentor.
More recently we launched the Leadership Competency Framework for Pharmacy Professionals at our Annual Conference. The Framework’s foundation is the NHS Leadership Framework launched by the Secretary of State earlier this year. It works in harmony with the clinical competency framework being used by other clinicians and offers every pharmacy professional the tools to acquire the leadership competence to meet the challenges associated with providing a more clinical role. This is a great example of how we are supporting our members and the profession more widely to develop new skills.
As you will see from this brief snapshot, it’s been a busy first year for the Society but we’re not resting on our laurels. We continue to grow and develop to meet the changing needs of our members.
We look forward to delivering even more for you and the profession as we enter our second year.
Martin Astbury
President