Contents - FIP

to evolving public needs and values, together with advances in medicinal and the other
technologies underpinning health care delivery.
In the initial few decades of the twentieth century the role played by pharmacists
moved from one centred on making what were – at least by today’s standards – limited
volumes of relatively simple medicines to one more focused on dispensing much larger
amounts of industrially produced, often more sophisticated, preparations. The loss over
time of the medicines making function represented (as the contemporary records of FIP
deliberations show) a significant challenge to pharmacists. Yet they successfully adapted
to facilitate safer and progressively more efficient medicines prescribing, dispensing and
use during the second half of the twentieth century.
More recently, pharmacists working in many countries have entered into another
period of transition. As the number of pharmaceutical innovations for the treatment of
common diseases outside hospitals has tended to decline there has been a progressive
genericisation 1 of medicines use in the community setting. At the same time opportunities
for computerising and/or mechanising aspects of medicines supply and information
provision have grown, creating new pressures for pharmacy to adapt. The main direction
of progress is towards that of supporting better medicines selection and use in order
to optimise the benefits of spending on pharmaceutical technologies, and contributing
directly to clinical care and public health improvement.
Differing local environments are – at least in the short to medium term – providing
differing specific opportunities for ongoing pharmacy based service development. Some
estimates indicate that even in regions with good access to pharmaceutical care at
present around a half of all medicines supplied are not taken to optimum effect.
This does not necessarily mean that a similar proportion of potential therapeutic gain is
lost. But throughout the world improved medicines taking, coupled with measures that
improve access to effective treatments, could significantly enhance the prevention and
alleviation of both long term conditions and acute ill-health (WHO, 2003).
The aim of this UCL School of Pharmacy analysis is to describe and explain the global
development of community and hospital pharmacy in the context of the demographic
1 Technically, generic medicines are prescribed and supplied under their approved/non-proprietary names, and should be effectively
identical between sources. But the term can also be used to refer to branded products supplied without intellectual
property protection other than that conferred by trade names or marks. Pharmaceutical markets such as that of India may be
described as largely generic, but encompass many thousands of competing branded products.
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