Work force development

Work force development

It would not be unreasonable to suggest that, over the past 20 years or so, hospital pharmacy in the UK has been the most innovative area of phar-macy practice. In large part this has been possible because of the steps taken to develop the hospital pharmacy workforce in delivering advances in patient care. Role development and accreditation, adoption and delegation of authority and skill mix have all been successfully used within the hospital pharmacy sector. These issues are recognised in the 2008 Department of Health White Paper Pharmacy in England: Building on Strengths – Delivering the Future.¹

This chapter will briefly review the recent approaches taken to the devel-opment of the hospital pharmacy workforce. It will also address a number of factors that will have an impact on those developments in the future. These factors include:

·      changes in the regulation of the profession

·      health service reform and government policy

·      new approaches to workforce planning

·      continued development of the clinical roles of pharmacy staff

·      development of advanced and specialist practice.