'Our vision for the future of pharmacy professional leadership'

By Paul Bennett

Today I’m proud to share with you the statement we submitted to the UK Commission on Pharmacy Professional Leadership in which we set out what professional leadership means to RPS.

I recognize we haven’t always been clear in communicating our ideas to members and our external stakeholders. Through the Commission, and our own Independent Review of member participation and communications, we are determined to remedy this.

We’re committed to lead pharmacy in the best interest of patients and the professions. This means that sometimes we will need to take difficult decisions. We will do the right thing for the long term, ultimately driving what’s best for patient care.

There are some key changes we believe are necessary to fulfil the profession’s ambitions.

To achieve a more unified approach to pharmacy leadership, we believe both pharmacists and pharmacy technicians should be represented by RPS within professional faculties that capitalize on the strengths of each discipline whilst retaining distinct professional voices.

Many of our members work with pharmacy technicians every day and know just how essential they are to their role and to patient care. We feel the same at RPS and it makes perfect sense to evolve into an organization where both professions can advance their scope of practice, working in alignment as part of the wider multi-professional team.

We will develop and implement post-registration curricula and credentialing for all pharmacists and pharmacy technicians working with patients and the public. To do this we will require formal delegation of authority by the GPhC.

This approach will give patients confidence in the profession to expand their scope of practice. It will also give pharmacists and pharmacy technicians confidence in themselves and each other. Critically it will give professionals a clearly mapped career path.

To reinforce professionalism, we want revalidation linked to these credentials so pharmacists and pharmacy technicians must demonstrate their competence at the level at which they actually practice. The ‘one size fits all’ approach to revalidation needs to change.

We want to see you progress in your career and believe financial reward from employers and organizations must be explicitly linked to your level of credentialed practice, so pharmacists and pharmacy technicians are rewarded accordingly.

We want to strengthen our reputation as a trusted, forward-looking, independent, professional leadership body, realizing a future that advances and supports pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to provide ever-improving excellence in patient care.

We will provide clear and authoritative advocacy and thought leadership that advances pharmacy practice and pharmaceutical science to create a cohesive professional pharmacy identity through communities and networks.

We are fully focused on building the future of the profession and will do this in partnership with you.

Paul Bennett is Chief Executive of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS).