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Our national identity is very important to us and is a really powerful tool when engaging with politicians and other health professionals in Scotland.
It’s allowed us to lobby and deliver some real changes for members in Scotland.
Here are just some of the things we’ve been working on in 2011 and our plans for 2012:
Access to the electronic medication record
New Scottish Government e-Health Strategy 2011 -2017
We have actively lobbied for many years for pharmacists to have access to the electronic patient record; at party political conferences, at MSP and MP visits to pharmacies and on individual one to one visits to MSPs in the Scottish Parliament. We have never let up on this one with well over a decade of intense and active lobbying and indeed it was one of our key priorities contained within our pharmacy manifesto for the recent Scottish parliamentary elections in May. We were pleased when it was announced within the new e-Health strategy document that pharmacists would be given access to an up to date and accurate patient medication record by 2014.
Going forward, we will of course continue to lobby and influence on behalf of our membership for pharmacists to be given access to the whole electronic patient record and continue to push for electronic pharmacist prescribing especially for the urgent supply patient group direction for out of hours.
Engaging with Government
Scottish Government’s Integration of Health and Social Care
Over the last few months, we have been involved as a key stakeholder in the Scottish Government’s commitment to integrate Health and Social Care. We have contributed at the stakeholder days and the work done at these workshop days has allowed a wide range of perspectives and issues from all sectors to be played in to this challenging agenda. This work will provide a valuable base for taking proposals to Ministers as they consider options with a view to making an announcement towards the end of 2011. The intention is that Scottish Government officials will continue to liaise with stakeholders to ensure that the proposals put forward for formal consultation reflect the work and input from the stakeholder groups, as well as the knowledge and experience of those who attended the sessions and who will be at the forefront of delivering this agenda.
Partnership Working
RPS / RCGP joint working statement for Scotland
Very much linked to the integration agenda, in Scotland we have been working closely with the Royal College of General Practitioners Scotland to produce a joint working statement similar to the one produced for England but tuned to Scotland’s specific mutual NHS requirements and direction of travel. We will be jointly launching this shortly.
Improving Medicines Safety in Scotland
Improving the pharmaceutical care of people in care homes medicines safety work
As part of the ongoing work to make Britain a safer place to take medicine over the last year we have had working groups looking at improving adverse drug reaction reporting and ways to engage pharmacists into the Scottish Patient Safety Programme (SPSP).
Another part of our medicines safety activity is the piece of work around improving the care of people in care homes. The first part of this is almost complete and a report with recommendations is in the process of being finalised to inform and guide the Scottish Government in its strategic direction in this important area. This report will feed into the recently announced review on pharmacy services
2012-2014 Review of Pharmaceutical Care Services
The Scottish government recently announced that the role which pharmacists play in contributing to the healthcare of patients in the community is to be reviewed as a further step towards enhancing their involvement in primary healthcare. It will aim to enhance the role of pharmacists and encourage closer working with GPs and other community based services. It will examine the arrangements for providing NHS pharmaceutical services, their fitness for purpose - including novel concepts such as the evaluation of group pharmacy practice and specialisation - and their long term sustainability.
We welcome the Scottish Government’s announcement to review the role which pharmacists play in contributing to the healthcare of patients in the community. This is an endorsement of the valuable role that pharmacists already play in the community improving pharmaceutical care and medicines safety. It is envisaged that the outcomes of this review will lead to the development of a pharmaceutical care system in Scotland fit for the 21st century.
We are committed to developing the pharmacy profession in Scotland, where all pharmacists are enabled to deliver higher quality pharmaceutical care in a safe and effective patient centred way and where pharmacists can play an even greater role in improving outcomes for people with chronic disease and helping people live longer. We also believe that pharmacists have an increasingly important role in improving health and wellbeing and helping address some of the major public health issues which still face all of us in Scotland.
We will engage fully with the Scottish Government’s review and see this as a massive opportunity for pharmacists to play an even greater role in helping the Scottish Government achieve its ambition of improving the quality of healthcare delivered to Scotland’s people in a sustainable and efficient way. We especially welcome the continued commitment to collaborative partnership working between pharmacists and GPs and we will work to support this in order to facilitate better use of pharmacists’ skills and expertise to improve patient care.
Our main priority in Scotland for 2012 will be to engage fully with this review and ensure that there is appropriate professional input into all stages of the review. There is a massive opportunity here to move the profession forward once again in Scotland. When the new Action Plan is ready in 2013 we will help and support our members to use their clinical skills to make an even greater contribution to improving the healthcare of the people in Scotland.
LPF activity
All LPFs in Scotland are now established and working well, with most areas looking at video-conferencing as the best way to increase attendance at meetings. Many have developed good links and relationships with the schools of pharmacy in Scotland, other health organisations, NES Scotland as well as local members of the Scottish parliament.
Looking ahead to 2012 we plan to increase this engagement and we have also had interest from a number of patient organisations and charities that would like to work with LPFs.
Towards the end of 2011 all LPFs in Scotland held events on the Scottish Patient Safety Programme and there it is likely that we will roll out further events in 2012, which tie in with this programme.