Community pharmacy leaders commit to top priorities

The Community Pharmacy Leaders Forum (CPLF) consists of the leaders of national and local community pharmacy organisations and was recently relaunched, with all participating leaders embracing the need to work together to deliver on common priorities to ensure New Zealanders have timely access to quality healthcare. CPLF met on 7 April and discussed the importance of having a clear role and limited focus as a group.

This will enable CPLF to increase equitable access to care for all New Zealanders by better utlising the skills and expertise of the dedicated and expert teams in over 1,000 community pharmacies across the motu.

CPLF Chair, Kesh Naidoo-Rauf says “CPLF agreed that community pharmacies can play a significantly expanded role in patient care. Members agreed on two focus areas to support patient access to care – advancing full scope of practice and developing a comprehensive workforce plan. All CPLF members supported these priorities and the potential to advance the community pharmacy sector in a way that will substantially benefit our patients.”

Implementing full scope of practice will allow New Zealanders to see their pharmacy team for treatment of a broader range of conditions. CPLF committed to setting up a subgroup to advance this action.

This work will need to recognise the innovation and initiatives being led by local community pharmacy groups and the current work of the Expert Advisory Group (EAG). CPLF also committed to developing a comprehensive workforce plan to ensure community pharmacy can deliver its vital and growing role and continue supporting patients with timely access to services, improving health outcomes across the motu.

The local community pharmacy groups were able to bring real life examples and experiences of pharmacy teams from their areas.

“CPLF’s focus on limited priorities and agreement from member organisations to commit to advancing these, means community pharmacy and our patients are likely to see real benefit from CPLF’s work”, says Ms Naidoo-Rauf.

CPLF will meet again in a few months and aims to meet four times a year.

CPLF is facilitated by the Pharmacy Guild.