Mentoring is a one-to-one professional development relationship, usually between someone seeking professional progression and a more experienced practitioner. Mentoring has been shown to have a positive impact on career development in healthcare, helping to improve confidence and interpersonal skills – of mentors, as well as mentees – and is also known to improve career retention rates and work performance.

Our mentoring service

We are currently investigating delivery of a mentoring service which will enable pharmacists from all sectors of pharmacy to benefit from the support and guidance of their more experienced colleagues.

It is also hoped that there will be a champion for mentoring in each local practice forum. This will encourage the development of mentoring and the identification of new mentors in each locality, thus ensuring that the service is provided consistently across Britain.

Member benefits

Anyone can benefit from having a mentor and the benefits of the relationship will be particular to each individual, an effective partnership can offer the following:

• Improved understanding of work issues and different approaches to dealing with them

• A sounding board for ideas

• Opportunities for self-reflection

• A chance to focus on priorities Increased confidence

The service is particularly relevant for pharmacists at significant stages of their career development. This includes those who are:

• Moving to a different sector or practice environment

• Returning to practice after a career break

• Working in isolated circumstances, eg, locums

• Seeking to gain experience in advanced and specialist practice areas

• Newly qualified

How the service will work

We are investigating the use of a mentoring service and when launched potential mentors will be able to upload their details in the networking section of the website. To ensure consistency there will be agreed mentor service standards

Members seeking a mentor or mentee  will be able to  self select  using our online database for suitable candidates. They will input their requirements and the system will come up with suggested matches. That mentor will be notified and, if they wish to proceed, will make contact with the mentee to arrange an initial meeting, to explore how the mentor-mentee relationship can move forward.

Once a mentor has been successfully paired with a mentee,the building of a of a professional relationship can get underway. Throughout the mentoring relationship we will seek regular feedback from both the mentor and mentee to evaluate the successs of the service against its key objectives.