Campaign letter for RPS elections 2021: Erutase Oputu on engaging with the membership

The landscape for pharmacy is changing rapidly, affecting all sectors — from new NHS structures, new remits for pharmacists, pharmacogenomics, ‘Amazon Pharmacy’, new education and training standards, to name a few.

The past year of COVID-19 has left pharmacists exhausted and overwhelmed. In community, pharmacists have been under intense pressure financially, emotionally and physically, and have risen to the challenge in order to provide quality services for their patients. Without a chance to recover, we must continue and embrace these challenges. There has never been a more important time for the RPS to engage and hear the needs of the membership.

If I am elected to the Board I will join knowing there are no quick or easy fixes to the challenges ahead. It will take patience, tenacity, and an ability to work effectively with Board members and external stakeholders to effect the real sustainable change. My priorities will be to sustain the focus on inclusion and workforce wellbeing, so that pharmacists across all sectors feel the tangible benefits. My focus and call will be collaboration with stakeholders, such as pharmacy schools and specialist clinical organisations, so that we are able to create synergy and provide a wide variety of accessible support to pharmacists at all stages of their career. I will seek to push forward closer links with academia to build the research skills of pharmacists to evidence the great work that pharmacy does to benefit patients.

A vote for me is a vote for change, and a vote for someone who is passionate about pharmacy and will work tirelessly to put the members’ views forward.

Erutase Oputu, election candidate, English pharmacy board, Royal Pharmaceutical Society