Achieving the RPS vision for the profession

During 2011 we will:
Create a compelling case for community pharmacy to be the natural outward facing manifestation of the English Public Health Service. This will begin with our response to the white paper “healthy lives, healthy people” in which we will present an evidenced based case for an enhanced role for pharmacists in the delivery of public health. We will also describe how the Society will produce guidance on what good pharmacy public health looks like and how we will recognise our members who provide such services. This will be supported by a public affairs campaign that will promote pharmacists as key public health providers and will target specifically those within local government who will have a greater role in the commission and delivery of public health services. We will create a local lobbying toolkit for LPFs and individual members to use when discussing pharmacist led public health services with stakeholders.

Build on the success of our campaigns in 2010 and run quarterly public health campaigns working with charity partners to promote the early detection of cancer.

Work during the year with expert members to create Education and IT strategies which are modern and impactful for the membership.

Later in the year we will begin to:

Lobby relevant government departments to enable pharmacist prescribers to prescribe controlled drugs.

Develop a compelling case for pharmacists to have read and write access to patient held records and in the short term to increase access of pharmacists to the shared care record.

Professional empowerment

It is proposed that all our activity that relates to workplace pressure is brought together under a “Professional Empowerment” umbrella under which we will provide members with tools, guidance and information that will help with pressures that they experience within the workplace.

During 2011 we will carry out a range of activities to support members:

• Work with MHRA in their Medicines Act review to remove the automatic criminalisation of single dispensing errors.
• Work with an academic partner to develop standards for the volume of activity in a safe and effective pharmacy
• Complete our work to create principles that should underpin supervision which will include a survey of members opinions on how they should supervise the work of their support staff
• Create a suite of support tools for members who feel they are under pressure that will help them understand and respond to their situation
• Work with GPhC and DH to assess the impact of Responsible Pharmacist regulations
• Work with GPhC to inform their standards for retail pharmacy businesses
• Monitor gaps and deliberate recruitment delays in the managed sector. Respond where patterns are identified
• Provide support for PCT and SHA pharmacists to transfer their roles into the new NHS
• Create a “safe” whistle blowing process for employees and locums who are placed in unprofessional situations
• Monitor on a quarterly basis the supply chain issues that members are having to deal with and report and respond appropriately
• Produce Workplace Pressure guidance document
• Produce Locum information template to capture what a pharmacist needs to know that is common to all pharmacies
• Lead thinking along with expert members of the profession that will produce IT and technology based solutions that will enable and support pharmacists in their practice.

Responding to government policy

The EPB has responded to the huge number of radical white papers and subsidiary consultations that have emerged from DH since July 2010. There will be more during this year including the Health and Social Care Bill 2011, the public health consultation “Healthy lives, healthy people” and the forthcoming consultation on Long Term Conditions. Summaries of all of these documents are available to members on our website page Liberating the NHS.

During 2011 we will:
Respond to all government white papers and consultations under the “Liberating the NHS” DH strand and all public health papers, putting forward the case for our members role in new services that will benefit patients. As the Health and Social Care Bill goes through parliament we will be lobbying hard to ensure our members are recognised and that opportunities are created.

Work with bodies representing PCT and SHA employed members as well as unions to support the transfer of the important roles carried out by these pharmacists into new organisations. This will take the form of career support, knowledge about social enterprise and tendering, a first aid toolkit for those at risk. We will be making the case for these roles and identifying the risks of losing such expertise to patient care.

Develop Society policy on value based pricing that is appropriate for the professional body representing pharmacists.

We will be working with DH and other pharmacy bodies to identify community pharmacy clinical leaders who can become a network of expertise across England and act as pharmacy champions in the new NHS.

Later in the year we will begin to:

• Investigate a solution to the harmonisation of service accreditation across commissioning boundaries.
• Lobby and influence to promote the role of pharmacists in medicines optimisation.
• Work more closely with NICE in areas of expert guidance and ensuring that standards that NICE produce is suitable for our members and aligns with our guidance.
• Develop relationships with the emerging NHS Commissioning Board.
• Contribute to work that will show how pharmacists contribute to quality outcomes in the NHS and how members can respond to Patient Reported Outcome Measures.

Medication safety

During 2011 we will:
Work with expert members and other professions to develop guidance around the medication information required as patients are transferred across care boundaries.

Promote the ability of pharmacists to use bar-coding technology to improve patient safety and enable patient pack dispensing. This work will also look at the potential impact of EU legislation relating to verification of medicines (counterfeit) at the point of dispensing.

Local Practice Forum development

The EPB is committed to the development of LPFs and will support the Society LPF team as well as LPF steering groups in their locality. The EPB will be looking at ways that LPFs can bring new policy matters to the boards’ attention as well as to make useful input into policy development.