RPS and Association of Pharmacy Technicians have ‘shared purpose’

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) and the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK (APTUK) “have a shared purpose… working together in the best interest of members, patients, the public, pharmacy and healthcare as a whole”, Suzanne Scott-Thomas, chair of the Welsh Pharmacy Board, told delegates at the APTUK 2017 conference in Cardiff, on 2 July 2017.

The RPS and APTUK have collaborated in the past and will continue to do so, she added, saying she “look[s] forward to the two professional leadership bodies taking the professions of pharmacy to new heights through continual improvement and development”.

Scott-Thomas was speaking on a broader theme of professional leadership, and the roles of a professional leadership body. She highlighted examples of what RPS Wales has achieved through professional leadership, including influencing government policy on the role of pharmacists working in care homes. Scott-Thomas went on to emphasise the importance of pharmacy having “one professional voice… in Wales we have set up the Welsh Pharmacy Partnership (WPP), formed of the RPS, Welsh Pharmacy Committee, APTUK, Community Pharmacy Wales and Welsh Chief Pharmacists”. The WPP, she said, has provided “one voice on primary care workforce issues” and is now focussing on the profession’s contribution to unscheduled care.

Scott-Thomas quoted the RPS Pharmacy Workforce Summit report, ‘Right place, right time, right number — positioning the workforce for patients’
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, which states: “Only through integration, collaboration and emerging from traditional siloes can effective delivery of person-centred pharmacy services (by pharmacists and pharmacy technicians practising at the top of their professional roles) be achieved.” Registered pharmacy technicians are, she said, “essential to delivering the vision and purpose of the pharmacy profession; we must all improve and advance together”.