Pharmacy’s professional regulator has launched a survey to discover how pharmacists and patients define patient-centred care.
The General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) will use the results to help inform its review of professional standards, ethics, conduct and performance to ensure that the profession delivers what the public expects.
The survey also hopes to uncover examples of best practice, as well as revealing the barriers and enablers to providing what the GPhC describes as “patient-centred professionalism”.
“Given the changes in the roles of pharmacy professionals and in the public’s expectations of pharmacy, it has never been more important to have an honest and open conversation about what it means to be a pharmacy professional today and in the future,” says Duncan Rudkin, GPhC chief executive. “We know that the vast majority of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians act and behave professionally on a day-to-day basis. We also know that demonstrating professionalism is not always easy, but that doing so is fundamental to the care of patients and people who use pharmacy services.”
Pharmacists, technicians, patients and the public have until 26 June 2015 to take part in the online survey.
The GPhC has published a discussion paper to accompany its consultation explaining the background to the survey and why it is important in light of recent NHS scandals, including the poor care provided at the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust between 2005 and 2009.
