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RPS Wales highlight developing role of prescribing pharmacists to Members of the Senedd

RPS Wales has been highlighting to Members of the Senedd about the developing role of prescribing pharmacists and how their skills can benefit patients and the NHS.

All members of the Senedd were invited to join a group of RPS representatives at the Senedd building throughout Tuesday morning. In all, 24 of the Senedd’s 60 members joined us for a series of 15-20 minutes conversations where they were briefed on key issues related to independent prescribing.

The conversations focused on 3 key overarching points:

  1. The current landscape of independent prescribing pharmacists in Wales and the ambition that every patient facing pharmacist will be qualified to prescribe by 2030.
  2. How a prescribing qualification helps make best use of pharmacists’ expert medicines knowledge and brings other benefits to patients and the health service.
  3. The importance of getting the right infrastructure in place to support both pharmacists training to be prescribers and those putting it into practice – with a particular focus on the importance of protected learning time.

Among those speaking to the politicians was Elen Jones, RPS Wales Director. Reflecting on the conversations, Elen said:

“It’s so important that Senedd Members recognise and appreciate the hard work and expertise of pharmacy teams across all sectors and right across the country. From our conversations, it was clear that they appreciated the value of pharmacists' prescribing role and we were thrilled to be able to showcase how patients are benefiting in different care settings."

“We were particularly pleased that there was a widespread agreement to our calls to have the right infrastructure in place to support the pharmacy workforce. The importance of protected learning time, sustainable workloads, integration into multi-disciplinary teams and effective cluster working certainly shone through."

“As well as Liz, Dylan and Richard from the RPS Wales Board, it was great to be joined by RPS Members Amanda Powell and Mari Lea Davies who shared their knowledge and ways of working that provide such great patient outcomes, working as part of multi-disciplinary teams. Undoubtedly, this helped bring our messages to life for the Senedd Members."

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