In October 2022, a delegation of PDA officers and members attended the 11th General Assembly of EPhEU held in Paris. EPhEU is a federation of the pharmacist representative organisations from across the continent and at this current time, the PDA holds the Secretary General position within this organisation.
The PDA is a key member of EPhEU where each country shares best practice in pharmaceutical care developments in Europe. This forum benefits all the countries that participate as do their respective members. At these events, new ideas are shared, problems discussed, and solutions considered based upon local experiences. The PDA tends to feed many of these lessons and experiences into its own policy documents which it uses to influence future developments in pharmacy practice here in the UK.
The two central themes of the conference this year were e-pharmacy and innovation in Pharmaceutical Care and each country has a different story to tell. Austria, Croatia, Denmark, France, Germany, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Serbia, and UK all shared how their pharmacists were making a difference to patients’ lives through applying their unique skills.
The event is a good opportunity to also discuss each countries wider experiences. Scottish locum PDA member Emma Richmond commented:
“Coming from Scotland, where we do a huge number of extra services many delegates had a lot of questions for me. Most were initially quite envious of our clinical freedoms as they have very few. For example, pharmacists in Austria are desperate to provide vaccination services but are blocked by doctors. However, the envy turned to disbelief when they discovered exactly how much we are expected to do and how little support and resources we must do it with. Many were shocked we were in such a position and whilst they remain frustrated with their own situation, believe that Scotland has gone too far in the opposite direction.”
At the end of the two-day event there was a much better collective understanding of the challenges each country’s pharmacists faced and a great enthusiasm to take back home the solutions that such pan European collaboration had generated at the conference.
By Mark Pitt, Assistant General Secretary of the PDA Union
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