Our very own Clare Filipowicz was lucky enough to attend The Pharmacy Show on Monday 16th October.
Here are her observations of the day including her 'Hot Topics' discussed on the day!
'Today it was so lovely to meet the number of inspirational people who are representing the role of the Pharmacy Technician.
For example, Katrina Worthington who began working in Pharmacy at 16, first training as a hospital Pharmacy Technician and then undertaking not only a graduate degree but also a master's degree in law whilst also working as community Pharmacy Technician. She is now a valued member of community pharmacy England advising on all aspects of legislation and regulations.
At the event I met with Donna Bartlett and Emma Guerin who are raising the profile of Pharmacy Technicians with the work they do as part of APTUK the representative body for Pharmacy Technicians. Donna has really helped raise the voice of the Pharmacy Technician and has sat on various consultations to help represent the Pharmacy Technician sector.
Emma is leading up the Welsh division of APTUK and gave a really insightful presentation on how the role of the Technician in Wales is evolving with many differing roles available such as dispensary leads, inhaler reviews, care home services and medicines, optimisation to mention but a few.
We also heard from Rebecca Chamberlain who I last worked with back in 2016 when she was working with Health Education Wales. Since then, Rebecca has completed a master's degree in education and has undertaken valuable research in relation to the Pharmacy Technician profession and is an experienced GPHC committee member and advisor with cross sector governance experience in health, professional regulation, and education sectors. Rebecca was a 'Women on Boards bursary winner 21/22' and now advises on standards for the British optical council. I really enjoyed the session and hearing her speak again.
Finally, I finished the day listening to Alison Hemsworth, the founder and chair of Pharmacy Technicians International. Alison is passionate about the research and development of the Pharmacy Technician role and has been pivotal in speaking up on behalf of the profession.
Hot Topics:
The hot topics discussed included the consultation and proposed amendments to be made to the medicines act to give Pharmacy Technicians more responsibility when it came to supervision, raising the profile of Pharmacy support staff and their valuable experience and the proposed introduction to allow Pharmacy Technicians to supply medicines as a patient group directive. Obviously with these additional responsibilities it highlights the importance of undertaking additional and appropriate training to allow the Pharmacy Technician to undertake their job in a professional, safe and competent manner and I was keen to see what this might look like.
The level 3 standard for the Pharmacy Technician role will be reviewed in the near future and it is expected that this will be updated to reflect these key roles and the knowledge, skills and behaviors that will need developing.