The NHS is in a state of flux

The NHS is in a huge period of flux. With this comes restructure, financial constraints and process review to improve patient experience and efficiency. This is a cycle that many of us will have been through before as the commissioning landscape is restructured. I still remember the clinical commissioning groups and primary care trusts of years gone by.

This opinion piece is not about how the organisations are changing.

It is about all of the people out there within pharmacy and the wider NHS who are directly involved, affected and going through a period of time which is (to underestimate) both unsettling and destabilising for them as individuals and their families.

Most if not all of us will either be directly involved or know somebody who is affected by the restructures nationally or how the squeeze in available resources is disrupting the front line.

Flux is hard and we need an organisation that can shepherd the profession and people through it.

So here we are, the Royal College of Pharmacy needs to be the professional leadership body that is proactively supporting, representing and building the faculties/networks so that there is always somewhere to turn to professionally when times are hard.

Both the Royal College and Faculties therefore need to have a seat at the relevant tables. They need to be ahead of the cycle, anticipate what is coming and manoeuvre us accordingly to be ready for the change.

And for those changes we don’t see coming there needs to be a fallback. There needs to be a wrap around and we need to look at how we do that. Nobody is alone and the situation that numerous pharmacy professionals are experiencing right now should not leave them feeling isolated. 

There is the positioning of the profession and there is the positioning of the Royal College to support its people. Both need to be done in tandem. Virtual by default can’t be the way forward. This modern love for Teams and Zoom can only work so far and support comes best for people in person and by building those groups to help support face to face. We need to have an onus on the Royal College to have faculties and local groups meeting in person to aid networking, support and to prevent the loneliness I can see creeping into the profession.

Matthew Prior

Candidate for the National Pharmacy Advisory Council for England