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personnel was used, informed by aspects of the GbCF. A draft framework was revised through a process of workplace interviews in Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea with wider validation using an online survey tool. As a result of this research a validated, service based, pharmacy competency framework was generated, containing 113 competencies, organised into four clusters: Organisation and Management Competencies 91.8% relevance (n=24), Professional/Personal Competencies 99% relevance (n=24), Pharmaceutical Public Health Competencies 97.2% relevance (n=24) and Pharmaceutical Care Competencies 90.4% relevance (n=24).

The Pharmacy Competency Framework generated from this research is service based rather than cadre specific, which allows wider application to the diverse pharmacy practice environments of the Pacific. The framework can assist health personnel responsible for the delivery of pharmacy services when considering education requirements for pharmacy service providers, and when monitoring staff effectiveness in their local context. This framework could be adapted to develop similar frameworks for use in other international environments.

PAHO/WHO Initiative

The Pharmaceutical Services initiative based on Primary Health Care began in late 2008 as part of the activities promoted by the Pan American Health Organization/ World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) to strengthen health systems in the Americas [26, 27]. The strategy for strengthening pharmaceutical services based on primary health care is patient-centred, and is part of the technical cooperation framework of PAHO/WHO in the region of the Americas. In order to join efforts to strengthen the role of the pharmacist for the development of pharmaceutical services based on primary health care, the Pharmaceutical Forum of the Americas (FFA) together with PAHO/WHO, FIP and the Pan American Conference on Pharmaceutical Education (CPEF), created the Technical Group for the development of competencies for pharmaceutical services. The Technical Group has been created to develop a proposal for pharmaceutical services based in primary health care and good pharmacy practices.

Several main references were used when developing the competencies [28 - 32]. The document will be published online and will be used as part of the didactic material for regional virtual courses. The GbCF was one of the references used to develop the final set of competencies contributing to a global map in the Competencies of the Pharmacist for the Development of Pharmaceutical Services Based on Primary Health Care and Good Pharmacy Practice document.

5.4 Pharmacy Education Journal | Overarching Resource Pharmacy Education is an online free-access international journal hosted and published by FIP and endorsed by WHO. It publishes articles with a focus on issues in pharmacy education. The journal is now engaging to a greater extent with the international audience by encouraging research submissions and inviting reviewers specifically from the global context.

The pharmacy academic and education sector is growing to meet the human resource demands in settings where pharmacy education is developed but also notably in regions such as sub-Saharan Africa where there is the greatest dearth of pharmacy personnel [8, 14]. Pharmacy education is perhaps the only way to provide a sustainable approach to workforce solutions in ensuring quality medicines supply and pharmaceutical care.

An essential part of this demand is to ensure that these activities in the academic and education setting are well reported in the literature including journals such as Pharmacy Education. An editorial decision was also made in 2012 to focus particularly on the main areas of publishing including original research, programme and assessment description and short reports, and will continue to support conferences and symposia through the publishing of abstracts.

There will be continued efforts to ensure quality of published works and support especially for new authors and researchers and those from the practice settings where formal education increasingly takes place.

5.5 Future steps

The Development Team aims to advocate and facilitate support tools for pharmacy education that are needs-based in their approach. This will include post-registration education in addition to pre-service.

Future FIPEd Development Team activities include the launch of the first African Centre of Excellence within the UNITWIN Network in Global Pharmacy Education Development (GPhED) network; the launch of the FIP Global Pharmacy Workforce Observatory (GPWO) in partnership with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society; the publication of an updated version of the FIP Global Framework for Quality Assurance of Pharmacy Education; further validation and development of GbCF v1; and the compilation of leadership development resources.