Motion no: 32
Congress notes that more than 95% of people in Northern Ireland live less than one mile from a community pharmacy. Congress notes that this level of accessibility did not drop throughout hardships of recent years. We note the annual estimated spend on GP prescribed medicines in Northern Ireland is £444Million, equating to 43 million prescription items. Congress also notes that pharmacists are found providing vital pharmaceutical care in hospital trust settings, as well as close to peoples’ homes.
Very soon, adding another string to the profession’s bow, pharmacists will graduate already qualified to independently prescribe medicines.
Yet pharmacists remain, in many ways, an outlier within in the healthcare workforce. Pharmacists often practice alone, with limited opportunity to collectivise, and as a result become more and more isolated from both intra and inter professional colleagues. Outside of those who are employed directly under the terms of Agenda for Change, there is no framework linked to pay for career progression. Not only is there is wild variation in employment practice across settings and sectors, but there is also variation between employers in the same sector.
Now, more than ever, we know the health service is broken and needs reform. Pharmacists as the experts in medicines with the potential to improve health at population level through pharmaceutical care, can no longer be outliers when service development and workforce strategy are being developed. They cannot be excluded from discussions on changes made that will affect their everyday working lives. This is crucial to retain the strength of the profession. Changes have already been made to the future vision of their professional roles, without their consultation.
Changes such as:
- Pharmacists being called upon to provide enhanced supervision and mentoring of Foundation Year Trainee pharmacists, yet this commitment and time requirement has not been consented to by pharmacists already practicing at maximum capacity. Union members have reported attempts to amend their contract by stealth to add this responsibility, rather than consultation.
- Prescribing pharmacists currently risk practicing under the expectation that they can simultaneously maintain core dispensing while prescribing in community pharmacies. Calls to introduce a two-plus pharmacist model have been thus far ignored, so pharmacists, in the interest of maintaining services, endanger their own wellbeing, presenting a potential risk to patient safety.
- Those working in GP practices are subject to pay increases decided by GP employers – who have at times sought to apply pay rises non-uniformly, by bypassing negation with the recognised trade union, and ignoring the simple principle that equal work deserves equal reward.
This is unacceptable and the interests of these workers must be protected. All parties who utilise pharmacists’ role in service delivery, or directly employ them, MUST seek to consult with not only the perspective of senior pharmacists in the trusts with managerial responsibilities, not only the pharmacy business owners, not only the employing GPs, but with front-line working pharmacists themselves, through their trade union - the PDA. There can be no excuse to be complicit in pharmacist exclusion.
Failure to include is to exclude.
Congress supports PDA Union’s campaigns to make this no more.
