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A leading pharmacist and member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) Scottish Pharmacy Board has been chosen to share her experiences of working in a community pharmacy in Scotland. Catriona Sinclair FRPharmS will speak at a roundtable entitled 'International Experiences in Professional Pharmaceutical Health Services' in Madrid on Thursday (May 5). Catriona, who owns and runs a pharmacy in the Highlands, is expected to give her take on community pharmacies' significant contribution towards achieving improved health outcomes and reducing health inequalities for local populations in Scotland. As an active independent prescriber, she is at the cutting edge of the profession in Scotland. Speaking ahead of her visit to Madrid, Catriona said: "I'm honoured to have the opportunity to collaborate with pharmacists from across Europe, and to share my experiences of working as a community pharmacist in Scotland.

The NHS Confederation and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) has published a report that demonstrated the importance of the collaboration between industry and the NHS to improve patient outcomes across the UK. Analysis from the report has shown a significant variation in access to innovative medicines for patients across the UK and showed that uptake of new treatments in these areas continues to be below the average of similar countries in Europe. The report, 'Transforming Lives, Improving Health Outcomes', has highlighted four initiatives where effective partnerships between the NHS, patient organisations and industry have helped to tackle unwarranted variation in the uptake of innovative medicines. Transforming Lives, Improving Health Outcomes also called for a systemwide secondary prevention strategy covering all parts of the health system creating a barrier to wider and consistent uptake of innovative medicine. It also noted that newly created Integrated Care Systems have the potential to improve preventative treatment. The report data also showed a 51% variation of uptake of three types of medicines related to diabetes between NHS Trusts in England.

A new report commissioned by the National Pharmacy Association (NPA) has revealed harsh financial realities faced by community pharmacies in England. The report by Professor David Taylor of University College London warned that 1000s of community pharmacy closure might take place by 2024 in England if the sector was not supported with additional funds. At the launch of the report titled 'Protecting UK Public Interests in NHS Community Pharmacy', Prof Taylor said: "There will be several 1,000s of closures over the next few years unless we take appropriate action, which doesn't mean to pour money all over it, but it is to fund appropriately when necessary. "At the moment, if we got a partial collapse in the pharmacy network it would disrupt medicine supply and increase health inequalities… For me, it's missing out on the future development of better and more accessible care, which would be the tragedy of reducing, harming and damaging the pharmacy network unnecessarily."