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The Department of Health has published 'A Guide to Developing the Role of Consultant Pharmacists' in Northern Ireland on Thursday (22 June). The guidance provides direction on supporting a consistent approach to the introduction of senior clinical pharmacy roles within and across HSC organisations. The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer Professor Cathy Harrison said: "There is a recognised need for increased clinical pharmacy and medicines focussed leadership across our HSC." "Consultant Pharmacists have an essential role in healthcare as clinicians and as leaders who make a significant impact to medicines optimisation and clinical governance, providing a vital link between clinical practice and service development by generating and disseminating evidence to drive improvements in care. "I am delighted that this guidance has been published to take forward the strategic development and appointment of the consultant pharmacy workforce in both primary and secondary care and to enable pharmacy to be at the forefront of healthcare in NI".

The Pharmacists' Defence Association (PDA) has raised concerns over "certain elements" of the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI)'s consultation on pharmacy staffing levels. PSNI recently consulted on its draft guidance for pharmacy staffing levels which sets out to explain what pharmacy owners and superintendents must do to ensure that each pharmacy has enough skilled and qualified staff. This includes having an appropriate skill mix, to provide safe and effective pharmacy services which comply with the standards. PDA said that the role of the 'responsible pharmacist' has not been "fully acknowledged" and that more clarification is needed. The association has made a few recommendations to PSNI that includes: the guidance must explicitly recognise the statutory role of the responsible pharmacist and their authority in securing the safe operations within the pharmacy. "The guidance should specify that pharmacy owners and superintendents must ensure that they do not set incentives or targets which may compromise the professional judgement of staff." It also recommended that unregistered staff (including unregistered managers) are accountable firstly to the responsible pharmacist for any activity involving the clinical care of patients (for example unregistered managers must not interfere in diary bookings for vaccinations).

The Council of the Pharmaceutical Society NI (PSNI) to remove the two-year requirement as a registered pharmacist to have an Independent Prescriber (IP) annotation on the pharmacy register in Northern Ireland. It has further endorsed that the two-year requirement for entry onto stand-alone pharmacist independent prescribing courses be removed and replaced with an assessment before admission, by course providers, based upon guidance provided by the regulator. In conjunction with the Department of Health, the PSNI will now work towards a further public consultation on the necessary legislative changes. Dr Jim Livingstone, president of the PSNI, said: "The Department of Health has set a clear direction which will see pharmacist independent prescribers becoming increasingly important in the delivery of pharmacy services in Northern Ireland. Our role is to protect the public, but we are clear that our regulatory objective should not be an unnecessary barrier to the development of the profession and enhanced services being provided to the public."

The Council of Pharmaceutical Society NI (PSNI) has introduced an 8-week public consultation on proposed Guidance on Pharmacy Staffing Levels within registered premises. The principle-based Guidance seeks to assist Pharmacy Owners and Superintendents to ensure that each pharmacy has enough appropriately skilled and qualified staff to provide safe and effective pharmacy services to the public. All registered pharmacies will have to meet the standards set out in the Premises Standards, when commenced. PSNI said: "The proposed Guidance should also help ensure a working environment that will facilitate pharmacists to meet their professional obligations under the Professional Standards of Conduct, Ethics and Performance for Pharmacists in Northern Ireland (2016)." "Whilst other health regulators have primary responsibility for systems regulation outside of regulated premises, we consider that the principles outlined in this Guidance, will be helpful for managers working with pharmacy teams in different settings."

A recent Pharmacists' Defence Association (PDA) survey revealed that 80 per cent of its member working in the NHS in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland rejected the NHS pay award. "For the first time in the history of our union, members have told us they are so angry that they would not rule out industrial action in conjunction with other NHS unions," said Paul Moloney, PDA Union national officer. "It is important that, whoever is to lead the government, they listen to this message and act now to ensure our members and others in the NHS do not face swinging cuts to their standard of living." PDA members were asked whether they would support industrial action if they had rejected the award and if other NHS unions would be taking industrial action. 58 per cent of those responding said they would support the PDA Union taking industrial action if members of other unions were also planning to take action on this issue. For now, however, the PDA Union will wait for other unions to publish the outcomes of their own consultations. As a union dedicated to representing the needs of only pharmacists, the PDA has been able to quickly survey members immediately after the pay award was announced.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has published a consultation to review the 'Professional standards for the reporting, learning, sharing, taking action and review of incidents error reporting' in collaboration with Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK and Pharmacy Forum of Northern Ireland. The consultation is open from 21 April 2023 until 2 June 2023 and are due to be published in early 2024. All three professional leadership bodies are calling for contributions from anyone using the standards to ensure they are clear, current, relevant and fit for purpose. "The review affects all pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, trainees and members of the pharmacy team working in all sectors across the UK," RPS said. "The standards may also be of interest to the public, people who use pharmacy and healthcare services, healthcare and professionals working with pharmacy teams.