Campaign letter for RPS elections 2021: Min Na Eii on advancing pharmacy and working together

Working full time in hospital pharmacy and part time in community pharmacy as well as for NHS 111, I empathise with both new and reoccurring issues (e.g. increasing RPS membership, diversity on Board for fairer representation) brought to the table by our RPS Members as well as non-members. If elected, I am keen to explore these issues to ensure that workable solutions are identified and enacted. I would also like to use the opportunity of being on the Board to collaborate with a range of pharmacists with valuable expertise to inspire the future of our profession. I hope to bring my experiences from being in a patient-facing role, working within a large multidisciplinary team, to help shape the national agenda.

I am passionate about supporting the advancement of the pharmacy workforce through training provisions and mentoring platforms to achieve further accreditations. With my experience as an independent prescribing pharmacist, I would like to work with the RPS Early Career Pharmacist Advisory Group in supporting our future foundation pharmacists to develop the required knowledge and skills to carry out their roles to the required standards.

I believe more local engagements could also forge a closer working relationship between secondary and primary care pharmacy teams to explore and eliminate any potential barriers to delivering the best care for our patients. This will help in the development of integrated care service provision.

A huge driver for me running in the RPS English pharmacy board election 2021 is to lead pharmacy in support of a greener and more sustainable NHS, ensuring that our profession plays its part in meeting net zero. With the UK government hosting the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2021, our profession should be leading greener healthcare strategies, applicable nationally and globally. RPS Scotland has already published its vision for Pharmacy 2030, which advocates for a more sustainable pharmacy service, citing “a moral obligation to help tackle the greatest threat to human health by reducing our impact on the environment”.

Climate emergency is a health emergency which needs involvement from all sectors in pharmacy — primary care network, clinical commissioning groups, research, academia, community, hospital and pharmaceutical industries. It would be an honour for me to lead the sustainability workstream in RPS England and unite all sectors to work together promoting greener practices.

Min Na Eii, election candidate, English pharmacy board, Royal Pharmaceutical Society