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The brand new updated RPS Professional Standards for Hospital Pharmacy Services are now available. The document replaces the 2014 version and provides a framework to improve current services, shape future services and roles and deliver safer, high quality patient care.

Applicable across acute hospital, mental health, private, community service, prison, hospice and ambulance settings in Great Britain, the new Standards have been developed in accordance with the NICE accreditation process, the gold standard of guidance production. 

The eight standards were produced through an extensive consultation and strong cross-sectoral engagement with the profession, multidisciplinary teams and patients. 

Steering Group member Jatinder Harchowal, Chief Pharmacist at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust said:

“The overriding aim of the standards is to enable patients to experience a consistent quality of service from within and across healthcare providers that protects them from incidents of avoidable harm and enables them to get the best outcomes from their medicines.  They also help deliver the safe, effective management of medicines within and across organisations.”

Nigel Westwood, one of the patient representatives on the Steering Group said:

“The Standards are the embodiment of patient-centred care. There is a strong focus on putting the patient first and the emphasis is on ensuring we are fully involved in our care and can share decisions about suggested treatments and medicines.”

The Standards give a framework that can be used by Chief Pharmacists, Directors of Pharmacy and their teams to initiate reviews of their own systems and processes in the continual drive to improve patient safety.

The accompanying updated Professional Standards Handbook shows where a standard refers to relevant legal frameworks and the core standards required by regulators, and provides links to supporting resources that can assist with implementation.  A presentation on the Standards is available to help explain them to key stakeholders such as hospital teams, Chief Executives and Boards and case studies of how the standards are being used in practice supplement this.

In addition, the RPS Hospital Expert Advisory Group has developed a consensus on definitions for benchmarking metrics to enable acute hospitals to collect data in a consistent way to enable benchmarking of performance.

“We’d really like to hear from people who use the Standards to find out how they have implemented them to find gaps in their services or improve patient safety,” said Rob Duncombe, Chair of the group.  “Please get in touch with support@rpharms.com so we can share best practice together.”

RPS is recruiting to its Hospital Expert Advisory Group which provides expertise on issues of hospital practice which impact on the pharmacy profession. For more information on how to apply please also contact support@rpharms.com 

Tess Fenn, President of APTUK, said "APTUK are delighted to welcome the revised Professional Standards for Hospital Pharmacy Services and see these as a positive step forwards in supporting the delivery of quality safe services to patients in a variety of pharmacy settings. It is key that the standards support professional practice of the whole pharmacy team and APTUK are pleased to have been part of this revised publication. It is pleasing to see that the standards link well with integrated models of care and are person centred. Applying the standards to everyday practice will go a long way in providing patients with confidence about their medicines and the pharmacy service they can expect wherever they are treated."