Inclusive Pharmacy Practice Anniversary

Sharing progress and next steps one year on

09 March 2022 (Last updated: 11 Mar 2026 14:23)

The Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK (APTUK), Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) and NHS England and NHS Improvement (NHSE&I) are marking the first anniversary of the Joint National Plan for Inclusive Pharmacy Practice (IPP) in England today by sharing the positive progress made and inviting all pharmacy professionals to participate in and support the IPP initiative.

Working together the three organisations have presented their key achievements over the past year (see below) and invited their 13 partners in the IPP initiative to work with them in 2022 to:

1. Help effectively steer the future direction of travel, working in closer collaboration with key national programmes / bodies which are influential in determining future pharmacy professional practice to improve workforce and health inequalities. This will be achieved via the IPP Advisory Board (members listed below), chaired by Chief Pharmaceutical Officer David Webb, to which partners will be invited to present their achievements, learnings and initiatives and to work with national organisations/programmes to determine key shared priorities for IPP. 

2. Seek the support they need to make a measurable difference to patients, pharmacy teams and health inequalities through working within the four IPP principles and using them as a framework for their own plans, goals and activity. To achieve this all partners have been invited to nominate a senior representative to a new Joint National IPP Engagement and Best Practice Group which will be co-chaired by Prof Mahendra Patel OBE, Professional Advisor to the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, and Liz Fidler, Senior Professional Advisor: Pharmacy Technician Practice. This will provide a platform for partner organisations to showcase their own practice to enable sharing of best practice and wider implementation.

David Webb, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer for England, NHSE&I said: “Thank you for the excellent commitment and engagement that our partners and pharmacy professionals throughout the country have shown to ensuring inclusive pharmacy practice is central to their goals. These new developments demonstrate we’re keen to continue to work closely with you and support this as a key priority for our organisations this year. We recognise only too well the longer-term commitment and continued efforts needed in order to be effective and successful at all levels and disciplines in achieving our intended aims and objectives.”

Thorrun Govind, English Pharmacy Board Chair, RPS said: “Achieving inclusive pharmacy practice will continue to involve open and honest conversations within teams and organisations that result in tangible and meaningful actions to improve equality, diversity and inclusion in pharmacy and in healthcare service delivery for all communities. We set out the expectation that our profession should look at its leaders and see themselves represented, and patients and the public should experience the same and we are committed to delivering on this vision.”

Claire Steele, President, APTUK said: “The reason for this initiative remains as strong as ever in regard to: the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 and health inequalities on under-represented populations; and the evidence we outlined in the IPP plan which showed the importance of fairness and inclusion to tackling unfair and avoidable differences in health across the population. We also highlighted that well engaged and supported diverse teams of pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and wider healthcare professionals and support staff improve patient outcomes, and this is something we should all strive to achieve.”

In support of the IPP initiative the RPS, APTUK and NHSE&I are running two joint webinars in April:

• Tuesday 5^th April, 15.00-17.00: Population health management webinar for system pharmacy professionals - register here  

• Tuesday 26 April, 19.00-21.00: Population health management webinar for community pharmacy professionals – register here.

Background

Our key achievements so far:

We held a well-attended second IPP roundtable last July, at which Dr Habib Naqvi, Director, NHS Race and Health Observatory, gave a keynote address on race and ethnicity in healthcare and pharmacy practice, and Cristina Serrao, Lived Experience Ambassador - Experience of Care Team, NHS England and NHS Improvement, gave a keynote address about the inclusion of lived experience in healthcare delivery; and which also included 8 participatory workshops delivered by partners.

Jointly, in addition to our two annual roundtable events, a webinar on diversity and representation in the leadership of the pharmacy professions and a series of case studies on how our collective leadership is responding to the IPP principles:

• We have published the healthcare service delivery resource pack How to deliver culturally competent healthcare for communities and people with an ethnic minority background and will be supporting this with two population health management webinars in April 2022.
• On education and training, we have published a menu of training and education resources to help meaningfully support inclusive practice, and the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education has also published a menu of learning for culturally competent person-centred care.

APTUK achievements:

• APTUK has appointed members of ethnically diverse backgrounds to the executive committee to provide leadership and representation of our members. APTUK recruited our first salaried role using an EDI compliant process by an external recruitment agency. To encourage its members to be inclusive and embrace diversity, the inception of an EDI related calendar serves to celebrate, commemorate and recognise significant events.
• There has been a change in recruitment processes for all posts on the Executive Committee. Supporting opportunities to discuss ways of working before application to enable a flexible approach, supporting committee members to bring their whole selves to their APTUK roles.
• We have recruited an EDI lead who has with the Executive supported strategy development and created two member observer posts on the Executive to help shape the strategy development.
• Publication of our 2022-26 strategy which has a clear commitment to deliverables aligned to IPP.

RPS achievements:

• The RPS published Improving Inclusion and Diversity across our Profession: our strategy for pharmacy 2020-2025, a strategy that was built in collaboration with the profession and demonstrates a clear commitment to bringing about real change to ensure everyone feels a sense of belonging. The outputs from the strategy undertaken to date can be found here. The RPS has been publishing its gender and ethnicity pay gaps reports and actions plans. In 2021, the RPS published a disability pay gap report and action plan.
• In addition, the RPS has conducted a review of its recruitment processes and is collecting inclusion and diversity data for all elected and appointed positions across boards and committees. The RPS published the data in 2021 to indicate the make-up of its membership and the wider profession.
• In collaboration with members of the profession and key stakeholders and organisations, the RPS developed and launched a RPS Inclusion and Wellbeing Pledge for organisations and individuals to demonstrate their commitment to creating an inclusive profession and delivering inclusive professional practice.
• The RPS also launched their antiracism statement and an educational resource highlighting race related microaggressions and micro-affirmative behaviours.

NHSE&I achievements: full details are on our IPP FutureNHS web page :

• The Chief Pharmaceutical Officer’s team at NHSE&I has set up the IPP Advisory Board to provide leadership to the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer and IPP programme, and the members of the Board are listed in Annex B.
• The CPhO team has published the baseline monitoring of and metrics for the diversity of the national pharmacy professional senior leadership team and the annual data collection will be repeated in April 2022. We have also published an organogram with biographies of the senior leadership team and held workshops for the senior leadership team on culturally competent healthcare and allyship.
• We have developed guidance on pharmacy professional representation on national pharmacy boards, committees and working groups and used it to appoint colleagues from under-represented groups to several internal and external boards including the senior leadership team. We are currently evaluating this process.
• Work in progress includes the development of a national mentoring scheme for pharmacy professional leaders, the development of an inclusive recruitment best practice checklist, a national talent management strategy and work to develop the inclusion of pharmacy technicians in senior pharmacy leadership.

Next steps:

1. Annual Roundtable: to which all partners will be invited to contribute in summer 2022.
   • Chair – David Webb, Chief Pharmaceutical Officer.
   • Purpose: A collaborative event to educate and engage with the professions, develop the IPP initiative, and share best practice, achievements and resources to support wider scale implementation.
2. IPP Advisory Board: partners will be invited to present their achievements, learnings and initiatives to the Board throughout the annual cycle of meetings.
   • Chair – David Webb / Bi-monthly meetings.
   • Purpose: To provide visible leadership of the IPP programme; guide, advise on and review/evaluate the work of the IPP programme; empower and support partner organisations; work with organisations/programmes to determine key shared priorities for IPP.
3. Joint National IPP Engagement and Best Practice Group:
   • Co-Chairs – Prof Mahendra Patel OBE, Professional Advisor to the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, and Liz Fidler, Senior Professional Advisor: Pharmacy Technician Practice / Bi-annual meetings.
   • Purpose: Share progress in implementation of IPP and shape the programme; collaborate on all aspects of IPP including the annual roundtable; share insight, evidence and best practice for dissemination and to guide implementation; shape and drive the communications and engagement plans.
4. Joint National IPP Engagement and Best Practice Group
   This is a new group which will meet twice a year, from May 2022. This group will help us to work more closely together and with frontline pharmacy professionals to gain greater intelligence and deeper insights around the delivery of IPP and successfully support the wider agenda of equality, diversity and inclusion across the professions as a whole.
   It will provide a platform for all the partners to: share their progress in implementation of IPP and overcoming barriers; and share evidence and best practice for dissemination; including case studies for presentation by partners to the IPP Advisory Board and for publication in our new, twice-yearly IPP newsletter. We’ll also discuss joint communications and engagement initiatives and plans.
5. Population Health Management webinars
   Two joint webinars are running in April 2022:
   • Tuesday 5th April, 15.00-17.00: Population health management webinar for system pharmacy professionals - register here
   • Tuesday 26 April, 19.00-21.00: Population health management webinar for community pharmacy professionals – register here.

 

IPP Advisory Board Members:

Name	Role	Organisation
David Webb	Chief Pharmaceutical Officer	NHSE&I
Natasha Callender	Future Practice Advisor	NHSE&I
Richard Cattell	Deputy Chief Pharmaceutical Officer	NHSE&I
Ros Cheeseman	Pharmacy Dean (Workforce Transformation)	Health Education England
Janaki Chitsabesan	Co-founder	Pharmacy Technicians of Colour
Professor Anton Emmanuel	Senior Clinical Lead for the Workforce Race Equality Standard	NHSE&I
Rashmi Kumar	Trustee - Patients and Public Participation Groups (PPGs) Network in South London. Chair of the Strategy Committee	i. South East London Integrated Care Partnership Board ii. Cicely Saunders Institute for Palliative Care and Rehabilitation, part of Kings College London
Chisha McDonald	Head of Pharmacy	Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust
Michael Molete	Carer Ambassador for Manchester	Carers UK
Dr Habib Naqvi	Director	NHS Race and Health Observatory
Dr Bola Owolabi	National Clinical Director for Health Inequalities	NHSE&I
Professor Mahendra Patel OBE	Professional Advisor to the Chief Pharmaceutical Officer
Professor Mala Rao	Medical Adviser, Workforce Race Equality Strategy Implementation Team Department of Primary Care and Public Health	NHSE&I   Imperial College London
Sam Rodger	Senior Policy and Strategy Lead	NHS Race and Health Observatory
Duncan Rudkin	Chief Executive	General Pharmaceutical Council
Ravi Sharma	Director for England	Royal Pharmaceutical Society
Claire Steele	President	Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK
ICS pharmacy professional leaders x 2	Currently being appointed