Pharmacy in Scotland will continue to build on the momentum created for real change, says Dr John McAnaw, chair of the Scottish Pharmacy Board.

Last year delivered some notable successes for the RPS in Scotland. We worked jointly with NHS Education for Scotland (NES) to showcase Prescription for Excellence developments from health boards, while in August we held our first Scottish National Seminar, which explored the foundation programme and the RPS Faculty, mentoring and leadership, and shared best practice across a variety of workshops.

The promise of £16.2 million of funding over three years from the Scottish Government will be used to recruit pharmacists with advanced clinical skills to work with GP practices. These pharmacists will have patientfacing roles and provide pharmaceutical care to patients with long-term conditions. So how will we build momentum for change in 2016, and beyond?

Our manifesto for this year’s Scottish Parliamentary elections, which has been developed with the membership, gives us the mandate to lobby and influence on those issues that matter most to members. One persisting issue is the lack of access to the Emergency Care Summary (ECS) and other electronic resources and systems that support continuity of care, so we will launch a nationwide Access to Records campaign to help us bring about change.

Shared care approach

We will continue to influence and shape the role of those pharmacist working with GP practices to ensure it is professionally autonomous and patient-facing. However, this role must also fit in with the wider context of community pharmaceutical care provision. There is a need, therefore, to ensure closer working relationships, with information being shared regularly between those pharmacists delivering care to the same patients. This shared care approach will strengthen pharmacy’s input to patient care and further enhance the patient experience.

There will also be a series of local and national events. We are scoping outline proposals for a second Scottish National Seminar in 2017 and we have agreed to work together with the Scottish Government, NHS Healthcare Improvement Scotland, NES and Community Pharmacy Scotland to deliver quality and safety roadshows across the country. We will also deliver another joint conference with NES in May, which will bring pharmacists together from across the profession to share best practice and make the patient journey more seamless.

We will launch a nationwide Access to Records campaign