Whatever the sector of practice, pharmacists are experts on medicines. This may be in their discovery, manufacture, preparation, dispensing, provision of medicines information, clinical usage, dealing with adverse events, costs, medicines management or general safety.
Consultant
pharmacists
Introduction
Whatever the sector
of practice, pharmacists are experts on medicines. This may be in their
discovery, manufacture, preparation, dispensing, provision of medicines
information, clinical usage, dealing with adverse events, costs, medicines
management or general safety. The question is: what distinguishes an advanced
or consultant-level practitioner? Chapter 17 touched on the issue of advanced
practice and its regulation, including the role of the Modernising Pharmacy
Careers Board. This chapter will focus on developments in the UK hospital
sector, detailing the history that led to the development of the consultant
pharmacist role, key characteristics of the post-holders and the way forward,
including non-hospital-based developments. It is worth noting here that the
term ‘consultant pharmacist’ is used in the context of the Department of Health
guidance, developed for use in England.
Leaders in hospital
pharmacy have traditionally been chief pharmacists, as professional leaders and
strategic thinkers, in addition to managing a department. The new and emerging
role of the consultant pharmacists differs from the chief pharmacist role, and
is based on the provision of clinical leadership as part of the pharmacy team,
working with chief pharmacists to deliver improvements in practice. Consultant
pharmacists will have devel-oped their expert practice area to an advanced
level and have significant demonstrable experience in pharmacy leadership,
education and research.
There has been some
confusion in the use of the terms ‘advanced’, ‘higher-level’, ‘specialist’ and
‘expert’ in the context of the consultant pharmacist. In reality, consultant
pharmacists may be any or all of these: they will be ‘advanced’ in their
knowledge of their area of practice and may be working at a ‘higher’ clinical
or technical level, they may have a specific clinical or technical area in
which they have expertise, or may be ‘expert’ in a general area of practice.
However, in National Health Service (NHS) hospitals in England, pharmacists may
only use the title consultant if they are employed in an organisation where
their post has been approved by the strategic health authority in accordance
with Department of Health guidance. This guidance makes provision for an
experienced practitioner to remain in a practice-based post for the benefit of
patients.
How did these roles
emerge?
Related Topics
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