Uzo Ibechukwu

The pharmacy profession is evolving rapidly, with a strong push toward clinical prescribing roles. However, there is growing tension between this exciting clinical direction, the diverse interests of our emerging foundation pharmacists — who are central to this future — and the challenge of ensuring that our workforce also develops the wider competencies and awareness needed to be effective in today’s highly complex integrated care systems.

Acute workforce shortages are currently making the delivery of pharmacy services in the south west of England particularly challenging. At the same time, there is a national need to increase the engagement of pharmacy staff in research, which has been recognised in various initiatives, including the new National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) ‘research incubator’ for pharmacy professionals.