Building an inclusive, future‑ready workforce

Inclusion is often spoken about as if it begins and ends with ethnicity. It doesn’t, and it mustn’t. True inclusion recognises the full breadth of who we are: race, gender, disability, neurodivergence, sexuality, faith, caring responsibilities, socioeconomic background, career stage, the professional silos that shape our daily experience and others. If our new royal college is to lead with integrity, it must champion all of these dimensions, not just the most visible ones.

A modern workforce needs a modern approach to inclusion: practical, accountable and embedded in how decisions are made. That means ensuring diverse voices shape council discussions, translating lived experience into policy and building transparent mechanisms that show how decisions are reached. Routine stakeholder panels representing every sector of our profession, structured equality impact assessments for every policy and measurable inclusion KPIs can help shift us from aspiration to action.

Leadership must model this shift. Rotating chairing formats, anonymised input to reduce bias and published decision rationales can build trust and change culture. Mentoring and sponsorship programmes for underrepresented groups across all protected characteristics can unlock talent that has too often been overlooked. And a council‑led implementation fund — with independent evaluation — can turn good ideas into tested, scalable practice.

But inclusion cannot be separated from workforce development. Our roles are already changing and will continue to change, as AI, automation and digital tools reshape clinical pathways, medicines use and patient expectations. Rather than fear this, we need to prepare for it. The College should lead a national conversation about the capabilities pharmacists and pharmacy technicians will need in an AI‑enabled healthcare system: critical thinking, clinical judgement, data literacy, communication and system leadership.

This requires us to be honest about where our current processes are holding us back. Credentialling, advanced practice pathways and so on remain overly complex, slow and inconsistent. These processes were designed for a different era. We need a streamlined, transparent, future‑focused model that supports progression, recognises diverse expertise and keeps pace with the realities of modern practice.

An inclusive, future‑ready workforce is not a slogan. It is a commitment — to fairness, to development, to modernisation, and to the belief that our profession is strongest when every voice is heard and every talent is nurtured.

Kandarp Thakkar

Candidate for the inaugural elections to the English Pharmacy Advisory Council