FIP Global Pharmacy Workforce Report 2012

Key messages • Access to quality medicines and competent, capable health care professionals are fundamental aspects of any health care system. Pharmaceutical human resources should ensure the uninterrupted supply of quality medicines to the population, their management, and responsible use, as vital components in improving the health of nations. • Multi-stakeholder collaboration incorporating best-available evidence is required to inform needs-based pharmaceutical human resources planning. When relevant, well-informed stakeholders partner to address workforce issues, there are greater possibilities for coordinated workforce planning and implementation. • Pharmacy workforce per capita varies considerably between countries and regions and generally correlates with country level economic development indicators. Countries and territories with lower economic indicators, such as those in Africa, tend to have relatively fewer pharmacists and pharmacy support workers. This has implications for observed inequalities in access to medicines and medicines expertise. In addition, some countries and territories have many times more pharmacies than pharmacists, which may imply a renewed need for supervision of medicines and medicines use. • Strategic frameworks and policies related to the pharmacy workforce are being successfully developed and implemented at the country level through multi-stakeholder processes involving ministries of health, health professional associations, regulators, and educators to drive and achieve both competence and practitioner excellence for care quality. • Improving workforce performance - productivity, competency and the ability to adapt to new roles - is an on-going challenge in the increasingly dynamic environment of rising health care costs, increased demand for health services, and increased burden of chronic diseases. Fuelled in part by an increased focus on patient care and inter-professional collaboration, these elements provide the opportunity for pharmacists to use their professional skills to provide safe, high quality, and cost-effective pharmaceutical services for the benefit of populations. Leadership is a key aspect in empowering pharmacy professionals to maximize these opportunities and to innovate and shape their practice. • Investment in transforming and scaling up professional education is crucial, as education provides the foundation for building a capable health care workforce. The capacity to provide pharmaceutical services in each country is dependent upon having an assured, competent workforce and an integrated academic workforce to train sufficient numbers of new pharmacists and other support staff at both foundation and advanced levels. Ongoing effort is needed to ensure capacity building of skilled medicines expertise meets the pharmaceutical health needs of populations. • A needs-based education strategy allows local systems to best assess the needs of its community and then develop (or adapt) the supporting educational system to produce a workforce relevant to these needs. National health care demands are diverse and complex, often varying widely within and between regions. Although broad and general frameworks may be beneficial at the macro level, a “one-size-fits-all” system does not offer the authenticity needed for full engagement and sustainability at the local level. • Pharmaceutical Human Resources continue to be a priority issue for FIP Education initiatives (FIPEd) to engage collaboratively with all stakeholders; we need to work together towards developing a profession that can meet present and future societal and pharmaceutical health needs around the world (www.fip.org/education)