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Academic workforce

One response to the global shortage of pharmacists has been to increase the size and number of pharmacy schools in both developed and developing countries. Expansion however presents many concerns including the quality of teaching, the number of available pharmacy-trained academic faculty members, and the academic standard of applicants. Higher education funding policies have encouraged higher enrolments, which have not always been matched by similar increases in resources including staffing levels.

In order to invest in the future, pharmaSuisse financed two chairs (50% positions in community and hospital pharmacy, respectively) each at the universities of Basel and Geneva. To consolidate these two new departments in pharmaceutical care and clinical pharmacy, pharmaSuisse is currently supporting financially their research.

In the UK, the lack of pharmacy graduates continuing to PhD level is a concern as the pool of academic pharmacists for teaching pharmacy undergraduates diminishes, a situation not helped by the market-led growth in the number of schools of pharmacy.

In Malaysia there has also been an increase in the number of private universities/colleges that offer pharmacy degree programmes. Due to the rapid expansion, clinical pharmacy, pharmaceutics, pharmacology, bio-pharmacy and social pharmacy are fields that have shortages of academics leading to a recruitment of foreign pharmacists [26]. International collaboration is increasing the production of pharmacists for the Malaysian market. The Ministry of Higher Education is also providing postgraduate scholarships to encourage pharmacists to move towards specialisation and academia. Thailand developed partnerships, such as, the US-Thai consortium to expand the academic clinical workforce and the Thai-UK Collaborative Research Network [27, 28]. These partnerships focus on needs-based training allowing students, practitioners and scientists to undertake government- subsidised advanced pharmacy and pharmaceutical studies (e.g. clinical and doctoral level) to build capacity for the academic workforce. Since the initiation of the programmes (1993 in USA and 2003 in the UK), about 200 Thai pharmacy practitioners and researchers have completed studies, returning to Thailand as clinicians, educators and researchers. These collaborations have helped with the transition to an all PharmD programme in Thailand.

Like in Thailand many Jordanian graduates are sponsored by universities to pursue postgraduate studies abroad and, subsequently, return as distinguished staff members to relay their experiences, skills and ways of thinking from regions such as North America, Europe and Australia.

Expansion of courses

In December 2012, the UK government announced that university intake numbers of pharmacy students would be planned for the future (as it is for medicine and dentistry), and to include all sectors of practice (including community and hospital pharmacy, academia and industry). Universities in the UK are currently free to open new schools of pharmacy and to increase pharmacy student numbers in established schools as the market determines. As a result the number of schools of pharmacy in England has increased from 12 in 1999 to 23 in 2013. Pharmacy student numbers have increased from 42,001 in 1999/2000 to 109,513 in 2011/2012. Currently around 16% of pharmacy undergraduates are from overseas (i.e. outside the European Union). The number of graduates in Portugal has also increased significantly in the past decade, due to the growth in number of the Faculties of Pharmacy, from 3 in 1998 to 9 in 2013.

The number of both pharmacy graduates and faculties in Jordan has increased significantly since the late 1990 s. Jordan s pharmacist-per-population density was the 3rd highest in the world according to the latest FIP Global Pharmacy Workforce Report [29]. The driving forces behind faculty expansion are multi-dimensional and include, for instance, the privatisation of higher education and the increased influx of international students. Japan experienced fluctuations in application numbers when the entry-level pharmacy education programme changed to 6 years and due to school fees.

4.3.3 National strategies

Many of the changes in pharmacy education around the world have been driven by national governmental and/or professional strategies. Portugal is reflecting upon ways to develop the services offered by community and hospital pharmacies in order to strengthen the roles and responsibilities of community and hospital pharmacists in the national health care system [30]. Some of the areas in which community and hospital pharmacists can play a greater role include the provision of new pharmaceutical services. This provides a means to increase the quality of care that is delivered, whilst ensuring sustainability of the health care system; and participation in cost-containment efforts to decrease the medicines budget through the selection, procurement, delivery and administration of the most cost-effective medicines.

In the Japan the health care delivery system is shifting to care at home, and pharmacists are expected to contribute