Commonwealth Pharmacy Day 2021
Commonwealth Pharmacy Day, 16th of June 2021
The theme for 2021 is “Resilient teams: Working together with pharmacists to improve patient-centred care.”
One of the most significant lessons that COVID-19 is teaching us is that health systems are only as resilient as their weakest link. Diversity of expertise matters to multidisciplinary teams who are caring for individual patients. Regardless of whether a patient’s journey involves an infectious disease or non-communicable disease like diabetes, mental illness, or cancer, finding the right medical support at every point of their experience can make a considerable difference to their outcome.
The critical role of pharmacists as members of a patient’s team is dynamic. They are frontline workers within our communities whom patients turn to beyond their physician including to seek out trustworthy information, which improves their health literacy and ability to manage their condition better. This has been illustrated during the pandemic, where pharmacists continue to have an active role in tackling misinformation and the resultant vaccine hesitancy.
Pharmacists are also important clinical partners within hospitals and other health settings where their special expertise in understanding all aspects of medicines and their use makes it possible to maximise the efficacy of medicines and monitor the side-effects more closely. This is beneficial in all therapy areas, but particularly where high-risk drugs are concerned, such as anticoagulants and anti-cancer agents.
Antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) is another area pharmacy has taken a leading role and excelled at in recent years, where taking the right drug at the right time and monitoring for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) can have a significant impact on the patient’s outcome and those around them.
In some countries pharmacists are authorised to administer vaccines, which has made it possible to reach a wider population during the COVID-19 pandemic in a shorter period, and in doing so is slowly reducing pressure on health systems and economies.
In many lower-resource settings, the role of the pharmacists is less well defined and integrated into the multidisciplinary team. In any given health system, spending on medicines is only secondary to human resource costs. It follows that investment in the pharmacy workforce to help use medicine more effectively and result in better patient outcomes has a huge potential to positively impact on progress towards achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
What is Commonwealth Pharmacy Day?
This is the day that pharmacists around the Commonwealth celebrate and promote the pharmacy profession. 16th June is significant, as it commemorates the inaugural meeting held in 1969 that led to the formation of the Commonwealth Pharmacists Association. It is also the birth date of one of its founders and first President, the late Albert Howells, who chaired the inaugural meeting.
Campaign material
Help us spread the word globally on Commonwealth Pharmacy Day by sharing our campaign material on your social media channels as well as your views about why pharmacists are important to resilient teams and patient-centred care in your country. Right click and save the image and copy the tweet text, or alternatively insert your own text using the hashtags #CPApharm and #CommonwealthPharmacyDay.
Tweet and tag others:
I believe pharmacists matter to resilient teams and patient-centred care because _________ (Fill in the space with your own words and tag others to do the same) using the hashtags #CPApharm #CommonwealthPharmacyDay
Tweet and tag others:
Pharmacists are trusted by patients and provide accurate and evidence-based information. They are key to resilient teams, playing a critical role in managing misinformation and educating the public around medicines and vaccines #CPApharm #CommonwealthPharmacyDay #Infodemic
Tweet and tag others:
Pharmacists are critical to resilient health teams because they support patients to make better choices through patient-centred advice that helps to prevent disease #CPApharm #CommonwealthPharmacyDay #HealthPromotion