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This means assuming accountability for medication therapy outcomes, and the development of professional curricula to prepare pharmacy students for future innovations in personalised medicines, information systems, and team-based patient care. In the meantime, developing countries are seeking support in developing patient-centred curricula and public health focussed pharmacy practice to meet their changing health environments, and to achieve universal access to essential medicines.

Challenges in Capacity and Infrastructure

The capacity to provide pharmaceutical services in each country is dependent upon having a competent, adaptable and capable workforce, and a similarly integrated academic workforce to train and support sufficient numbers of new registrant pharmacists and other support staff at both entry-to-practice and advanced levels.

However this report suggests that pharmacy education, in both capacity and infrastructure, varies considerably between countries and territories and WHO regions, and generally correlates with country level economic development indicators. Those countries and territories with lower economic indicators tend to have relatively lower educational capacity and pharmacist production. There needs to be an on-going effort to ensure capacity building is linked with initial education and training in order to meet the pharmaceutical health needs of communities and populations.

Pharmacy students and young pharmacists also have an important role in developing and transforming pharmacy education as their experience of education is, increasingly, a significant influence in the delivery of quality improvement. There remains, however, a global shortage of pharmacist academics and of practice-based supervisors. Universities and policy makers need to think of new ways to attract practitioners into these roles; there is a need to create clear career pathways and training schemes to address the academic workforce in general, and a practitioner-academic workforce in particular.

A focus is also required on developing better approaches to continuing education and practitioner development models for the existing pharmaceutical healthcare workforce. Better training will lead to better care and this must include the training and supervision of support workers, and care assistants, as this still remains an unacceptable policy oversight.

The understanding of pharmacy education and the significant influencing factors, are essential for planning human resources for health and for achieving universal access to medicines and medicines expertise. Collaboration with key partners, including governments and national and international pharmacy organisations, is crucial to achieving sustainable solutions to the challenges surrounding pharmacy education.

PART 1

The practice of pharmacy, pharmaceutical science, and education are undergoing unprecedented global changes. Extended and new roles for pharmacists, as providers of health care services and as scientists, are increasingly being recognised and valued. Pharmacists worldwide are providing essential medicines expertise for collaborative health care teams, for medicines prescribing and the provision of critical medicines information to other health providers about the benefits, risks, and potential adverse interactions of medicines. The complexity of therapeutic agents available for communicable diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis (TB), HIV/AIDS and non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cancer, has never been greater.

A Needs-based Approach to Education for Better Health Outcomes

FIP advocates for the consistent use of a needs-based approach to education with an emphasis on linking pharmacy education with the health needs of populations and national priorities. FIP Education Initiative (FIPEd) urges all countries to examine this issue through thoughtful and objective dialogue among all stakeholders.

The FIPEd Development Team needs-based education model describes that pharmacy education should be locally determined, socially accountable, globally connected, and quality assured in order to meet the given health needs of communities. An adaptable quality assurance framework (http://www.fip. org/files/fip/PharmacyEducation/QA Booklet.pdf) has been developed and adopted by FIP to support this approach. In addition, the FIP Global Competency Framework (http:// www.fip.org/files/fip/PharmacyEducation/GbCF_v1.pdf) has been adapted and adopted by several countries for mapping country-specific needs for early career professional development and the initial education of the pharmaceutical workforce.

Accountability and Education

Increased attention to the challenge of social accountability for the professional health care workforce is no exception in pharmacy. High quality pharmaceutical education systems and provision underpins all national population and national health priorities. Civil society should expect that Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are socially accountable, and that pharmacy education provision has effective quality-assured systems based on a clear description of professional competencies, linked with health care needs.

Opinion leaders and governments in developed countries are calling for pharmacy education to take the lead in medicines optimisation and pharmaceutical public health.

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