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that the QAPE initiative will initially get implemented as a voluntary exercise and become mandatory over a period of time.

The Taskforce will then be given the mandate to frame the tools (norms) for QA for pharmacy education in the country (undergraduate, postgraduate, CPD, practitioner development, LLL, as well as participating in an appropriate global platform and having on-going dialogue on sharing of evidence, practice, lessons learned, resources and tools for pharmacy education and workforce planning, and mutual recognition of pharmacy qualifications.

The PCI envisages that by the year 2020, NTF QAPE will help overcome weaknesses in the education system and help produce appropriately trained pharmacists with the competencies to not only meet the demands of the country, but also be a part of a global competent health care workforce.

5.3 Global Competency Framework v1 (GbCF)

Competency frameworks in healthcare have become increasingly popular due to the need for transparency in the training, development and accreditation of health care professionals. Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is advocated as a means of ensuring the competence of health care professionals and is now mandatory for many of the health care professions. In order for CPD to be meaningful, health care professionals need to know the areas of competence for their role, what it is they need to be able to do, to enable them to accurately identify their learning needs. Competency frameworks are based on real life roles and experience and so can provide a starting point, while experiential or applied learning is essential for the development of competence [13, 14].

The Competency project team has developed an initial construct towards an educational roadmap to guide efforts in and mechanisms for pharmacy education [15, 16]. The GbCF Version 1 contains a core set of behavioural competencies (www.fip.org/pe_resources). It can be a starting point to provide guidance for foundation level practice, at an individual level and also for further development of advanced practice. It can also be an aid in providing an overview of how practice at a foundation level can be translated into the what and how for students, always with country specifications in mind. The GbCF does not imply that there should be a single global curriculum that would fit all.

Acting as a mapping tool for the creation of country specific needs for the development of practice and practitioner professional development, the GbCF can be attached to an assessment grid and, together with appropriate assessment tools, aid countries that do not currently have a competency

framework but wish to develop one. By creating a portfolio, in synergy with other assessment tools, countries can implement the tool into practice, developing education and training infrastructures for their practitioners [17 - 23].

The GbCF is a living document and more studies are encouraged to effectively refine the core competencies for a foundation level framework across all pharmacy sectors that will improve the competence of practitioners. Nonetheless, the findings from its development provide evidence that at its core a practitioner is the same globally, there are the same expectations of competence, and the practice is similar as practitioners are the medicines experts.

Examples of how countries and individual schools have used the GbCF:

Ireland

Cora Nestor, Practice Development Pharmacist, Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland

In Ireland, the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland (PSI, the pharmacy regulatory body), is currently implementing a new system of mandatory CPD for pharmacists informed by the recommendations of an international review of CPD models. In this new CPD system, all pharmacists are encouraged to adopt a more reflective approach to learning and to identify their own learning and development needs based on the skills and competencies required for their particular professional practice. A core competency framework was identified as a key requirement for the implementation of this new system to provide guidance and structure for CPD over the changing demands of a pharmacist s career. The competency framework for pharmacists in Ireland was developed based on the GbCF for pharmacists drafted by the former FIP Pharmacy Education Taskforce, now FIPEd Development Team.

The GbCF was used as a mapping tool to review the competencies and behaviours identified to reflect Irish pharmacists practice. An expert group of pharmacy practitioners from all practice settings in Ireland was formed to review the framework. Participants used their knowledge and practical experience to review and update the competencies as identified in the GbCF, to those that would be required of pharmacists newly-registered to practice pharmacy in Ireland. Following the development process, the Council of the PSI, adopted the core competency framework for pharmacists in Ireland and this framework will now be used as a tool to guide the continuing professional development of pharmacists over the changing demands of their careers.