June 2018
IN THIS MONTHS' EDITION:
- PSNZ Fellowship award
- New Pharmacy Practice E-Handbook and Guidelines
- Symposia 2018 report
- Reminder: University of Otago survey
- Hepatitis C Summit 2018 Auckland
PSNZ Fellowship award
PSNZ 2017 Fellowship recipient Assoc Prof Rhiannon Braund with PSNZ President Graeme Smith
Associate Professor Braund is a pharmacist who has had a very significant impact on pharmacy at a national and local level through teaching, research, publishing, and governance roles. Assoc Prof Braund was awarded the PSNZ Fellowship at the Christchurch Symposium 24 June 2018.
Read the full citation here.
Do you know a PSNZ member who has made an outstanding and significant contribution to the advancement of pharmacy in New Zealand?
The Rules of the Society state that "the National Executive may, in its discretion by ordinary resolution, designate, as a Fellow of the Society, any Member who, in their opinion, has met this criteria". The Society has a long tradition of recognising the profession’s bright stars.
If you know someone who deserves this recognition, start working on their nomination now and return it to PSNZ before the closing date of Friday 28 September 2018.
More details can be found on website at PSNZ Awards.
new pharmacy pRACTICE e-HANDBOOK and practice guidelines
The Practice Team are pleased to announce the release of a new Pharmacy Practice e-handbook and supporting Practice Guidelines.
The handbook and guidelines are designed to be used as online tools, which are available to all members of the Society.
Due to the constant changes in healthcare and to ensure members have the most up to date information it is not possible to download or physically print the handbook or guidelines.
The Practice team have also developed a document to provide members with
an overview of these new tools.
If you would like to read the document please click
here.
The handbook and guidelines can be found on the Practice Support page of
the Society’s website.
To access the page directly please click
here.
SYMPOSIA REPORT
Excerpts from the state of pharmacy address to Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch Society symposia by president, Graeme Smith.
"The pharmacy landscape in New Zealand has been dominated by the debate on the future of community pharmacy services with the release in February of a consulatation document put out by the DHBs.
It is clear that the DHBs do not see value in dispensing in the current transactional payment model. ...We must embrace the use technology and process engineering to make dispensing more efficient and free up pharmacist time to do more of what we were trained to do. To be the medicines expert in the health care team.
There are positive signals in the consultation document. DHBs want to recognise and reward the advice provided by pharmacists every day for free. The DHBs also want to commission services provided by pharmacists to meet local needs.
Whatever model evolves it must have a sustainable network of community pharmacies at the centre of it. However, we cannot let the old model prevent out profession from generating new initiatives. There are pleny of examples from around the world that show where pharmacists can use their skills as the medicines expert in the health care team. It's happening in isolated instances in this country and it's happening widely overseas. There are now over 1600 pharmacists attached to general practices in the UK funded through the NHS. The recent Federal Budget in Australia provided funding for pharmacists to work in general practice.
The UK model has more pharmacist in-patient facing roles where the Australian model is based more around quality improvement in prescribing and liaison with services provided from community pharmacy. Several countries including Scotland have thriving minor ailment schemes. The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for Scotland has a stated goal having all pharmacists as prescribing pharmacists by 2025. In Canada pharmacists are managing long term conditions like hypertension.
Your Society is not sitting back and waiting for things to happen.
We will be advocating strongly both through the Federation and independently for the place of pharmacists as the medicines expert in the health care team.
We have to own the space of the medicines expert in the health care team. I believe we have the right building blocks in place and I believe we are developing the next generation of leaders to take up the challenge. Be strong, make it happen. Kia kaha."
REMINDER: Pharmacist prescribing models survey, University of Otago
The University of Otago invites community pharmacists to participate in a short survey to identify their preferences for pharmacist prescribing models in primary care.
Read the letter from the Otago University School of Pharmacy discussing the study.
Click this link to read about the experiment and participate: https://otago.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_erFx2Uiy0PAPtJ3
Hepatitis C Summit 2018 Auckland
ABBVIE and the summit steering committee are pleased to invite you to the second Hepatitis C Summit Friday 27 July 2018. This event is expected to be the premier gathering for the wider Hepatitis C community in New Zealand and we are delighted to confirm Hon Dr David Clark (Minister of Health) and Dr Homie Razavi (Centre for disease analysis, USA) will be joining us as keynote speakers.
Experts from a range of disciplines and stakeholder groups are working together as members of the Summit Steering Committee to examine the key elements required for a National Hepatitis C Action Plan in New Zealand.
The Summit agenda will highlight and discuss these requirements in order for New Zealand to achieve the World Health Organisation (WHO) goal to eliminate the hepatitis C virus by 2030.
The Hepatitis C Summit is timed to coincide with World Hepatitis Day on Saturday 28th July. One of just four disease-specific global awareness days officially endorsed by the WHO, World Hepatitis Day aims to bring the world together under one single theme in order to raise awareness of viral hepatitis and the impact it has worldwide. The global theme for World Hepatitis Day 2018 is "Eliminate Hepatitis".
You can register by following this link https://starcite.smarteventscloud.com/hepcsummit2018, using HEPCSUMMIT as the registration code. Register early to secure your place.