NEWS
NES Pharmacy conference hears ‘professional competence is not enough’
The Fifth NES Pharmacy Conference was held at The Royal Society, George St, Edinburgh on recently attracting over 150 delegates from across the NHS in Scotland. Arlene Brailey, Assistant Director of Pharmacy with NHS Education for Scotland gives Scottish Pharmacist an exclusive overview of proceedings.
The theme of the event focussed on the Scottish Government’s Vision and Action Plan “Prescription for Excellence (PfE)” and its explicit link with education. Professor Norman Lannigan, as Chair of the NES Professional Advisory Group, chaired the event.
Professor Sir Lewis Ritchie set the tone by stressing “professional competence is not sufficient - we must strive for excellence”. The PfE Steering Board Chair outlined the need for collaboration between professionals by abolishing professional hierarchies - within and between - professions so the focus always remains on the patient.
He encouraged person-centred care as a guiding principle; get to know your patients, do your best for them, and focus on their needs, he said.
Key note presentations were given by the Pharmacy Regulator (GPhC) and the Professional Body (RPS) on the importance of the links between education, integration, policy and professionalism in the pursuit of excellence. Damian Day, Head of Education at GPhC, said the more confident pharmacy students are those who learn within an interdisciplinary integrated environment. To achieve PfE will therefore require transformational change not incremental change.
Helen Gordon, CEO of RPS reminded the audience of the importance of working together and learning together across pharmacy organisations and other professions, as we strive for excellence – and the importance of professionalism underlining everything we do.
The three Assistant Directors of NES (Pharmacy) outlined the educational support delivered by NES around: • workforce development • independent prescribing and clinical skills
• professional and clinical leadership.
The Director of NES (Pharmacy), Professor Rose Marie Parr brought the event to a conclusion by outlining how education continues to help inspire, inform and shape professional excellence in practice.
She highlighted the issues that could impede progress to bring the vision of PfE to reality – such as the challenges
12 - SCOTTISH PHARMACIST
Caroline Lamb, Acting CEO at NES, Professor Norman Lanningan, Chair of PAG, Helen Gordon, CEO at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and Professor Rose Marie Parr
of workforce planning and skill mix, integrated undergraduate programmes, and innovations such as genomics. She also urged the need to formalise support to help embed clinical pharmacist prescribers in practice, for example, like the ACT- type funding used in medical and dental training to benefit NHS improvement.
Workforce Development Delegates were encouraged to discuss a number of issues around career frameworks and workforce – such as what a pharmacy clinical career structure could look like for all sectors of practice.
Ian Rudd and Frances Rooney, who helped lead some of the workshops, commented, “It was a privilege to have the opportunity to discuss the future educational requirements of community pharmacists delivering new services under Prescription for Excellence.
“The views will help inform the actions of the Prescription for Excellence “Building Clinical Capacity of Pharmacist and Pharmacy Technician workstream. We were especially encouraged by the positive engagement by a range of pharmacists and we welcome the offer
of support from Community Pharmacy Scotland as the workstream develops.”
Independent Prescribing This workshop was used to highlight, in more detail, areas of work that NES are currently involved in and planning to help support implementation of pharmacist prescribing in NHS Scotland.
Julie Fisher, an Educational Development Facilitator in the NES East Region presented research work underway looking into `Hospital Pharmacist Prescribing – What supports activity?`
Pharmacists from two NHS Boards shared how they are implementing NES Teach and Treat services to initially mobilise current prescribers but also to then train new prescribers, within priority clinical areas. Paul Forsyth highlighted the work within NHS GG&C, training pharmacist prescribers to deliver clinics for Post MI LVSD patients whilst Fiona Forrest outlined the development of Polypharmacy clinics in NHS Fife. Fiona Reid, the NES Lead for Pharmacist Prescribing and Clinical skills closed the session with an insight into plans to pilot an online Prescribing Safety Assessment tool for pharmacist prescribers.
The Leadership Workshop was attended by approximately 40 conference participants, and was led by Professor Angela Timoney. The aim was to contribute to the Education and Professional and Clinical Leadership Prescription for Excellence Working Group development of a framework for leadership and clinical development in a multidisciplinary environment.
Professor Timoney said, “The group were enthusiastic participants and came up with good ideas to take forward clinical and professional leadership in a multidisciplinary environment. The group identified the need for leadership at all levels of our profession and the requirement to develop a framework to enable this.”
A New PfE date for your diary Prescription for Excellence – It’s happening now.
A NES and RPS Joint event will be held in Edinburgh on Tuesday 26 May 2015. The conference aims to identify PfE developments occurring in Scottish Health Boards and facilitate cross fertilisation of developments across Scotland. Register now at
http://ow.ly/KhL0x
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