The future for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians is exciting and filled with opportunity to improve care for patients and the public. We welcome the recognition from the four Chief Pharmaceutical Officers of the UK that both pharmacists and pharmacy technicians will be supported to acquire new skills to manage the ever more complex care that healthcare provides.
Pharmacists will soon be qualifying with the ability to prescribe medicines and an increasing number of pharmacists, in all sectors, are already practising at advancing levels of practice.
We believe strongly that the RPS is the organisation that can set and assure standards of post registration pharmacy practice. We have already taken a collaborative approach to develop a suite of post registration curricula across the UK to ensure safe and effective patient care. We will continue to work with the GPhC and others on this developing programme.
We are demonstrably working across the UK to accredit consultant pharmacist posts and credential individuals on behalf of the NHS. We are already working with the Royal Society of Biology and Royal Society of Chemistry to certify pharmacists to be qualified persons, (QP) to assure the quality of medicines.
We are willing and able to work with pharmacy technicians to help support their professional development. We believe the RPS is best placed to create an aligned framework for post registration assessment and credentialing of pharmacy technicians working collaboratively with all stakeholders including APTUK.
We have a global outlook, however RPS professional leadership is primarily focused on England, Scotland and Wales. We would welcome the opportunity to see how we can further strengthen our collaboration with professional leadership in Northern Ireland.
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