What might the current Westminster Government mean for ... - BOPA

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Chair’s introduction Welcome to the first edition of the new BOPA Bulletin – the result of a partnership between BOPA and The British Journal of Clinical Pharmacy. Last year the BOPA Executive Committee undertook an e-survey and focus groups with members to find out their reasons for being members of BOPA and to identify how we might better meet their current and future needs. The BOPA Strategic Plan was built to help meet these needs and you can read about progress on the various elements of this strategy in the update in this issue of the Bulletin (p5). Among the BOPA services that members appear to find of most value is the BOPA newsletter – although we recognised that this service needed to be improved. The Committee therefore believe that a partnership with BJ Clin Pharm will help us to improve the content and quality of the newsletter for existing members, while allowing us to reach a wider audience in the pharmacy world – the BOPA Bulletin will now be circulated to around 10,000 pharmacy staff in the UK. We plan to circulate three editions of the BOPA Bulletin every year. One will be a post conference issue and will focus on reporting on the content of the conference. The other two issues are planned to David Thomson provide a combination of updates on the work of BOPA, news items from the cancer world, a lead article, a science article, a debate article, and other content. We would encourage you to let us know what content you would like to see and indeed to contribute to the BOPA Bulletin. One way of doing this is by volunteering to join our virtual ‘Bulletin sub-committee’ – please contact me at david.thomson@ycn. nhs.uk if you are interested. So, whether you are an existing BOPA member, or are a pharmacy professional who occasionally works with or on behalf of cancer patients, we hope that you find the BOPA Bulletin a useful and interesting read. CNPF Chair’s introduction As Chair of the Cancer Network Pharmacist Forum I would also like to welcome you to the new-look BOPA Bulletin. Cancer networks are charged with delivering Department of Health and NICE cancer policy. Accordingly, the CNPF is well placed alongside BOPA to formulate and influence cancer policy at a national level. Within the NHS, we are all going to have to learn to make do with less and work more efficiently over the next few years and cancer services will not be immune to this. Cancer services will become increasingly integrated into the primary care sector and will also impact on existing secondary care arrangements, with initiatives to reduce excess inpatient bed being put in place. The National Chemotherapy Advisory Group report will change the way chemotherapy is delivered in the UK forever. The development of acute oncology services will bring the care of patients previously treated at cancer centres into district general hospitals. These changes will impact on all pharmacy services within primary and secondary care and so I urge everyone, even if you think that oncology or haematology does not impact on your everyday practice, to tune in and enjoy the new BOPA Bulletin. Anne Hines CNPF Chair FCP Chair’s introduction This year is witnessing multiple changes to the profession of pharmacy, not least the publication of the BOPA Bulletin. With the closure of the College of Pharmacy Practice (CPP) and the protracted birth of the Professional Leadership Body (PLB) for pharmacy, it is particularly pleasing to see the development of this resource. Indeed, one of the Faculty of Cancer Pharmacy’s stated aims is to provide access to comprehensive, accredited continual professional development for members in the field of cancer pharmacy. Articles published in this and future editions of the BOPA Bulletin will help us ensure that this aim is achieved. Opportunities will also exist for presenting research findings and to promote new developments. As BOPA members will no doubt know, the FCP was primarily set up as a route to the formal assessment and recognition of the knowledge and skills required of individuals to become specialists in cancer pharmacy. To ensure this aim continues to be met, we are forming a virtual network within the PLB. Through partnership working, we are confident that any credentialing processes developed in the future will include the assessment methods already in use and so we would encourage the continued use of the ‘Specialist curriculum group cancer care handbook competency framework’ and the ‘Advanced and consultant level framework’ for portfolio development. We expect to be able to give more detailed information of these arrangements with the PLB at the FCP forum to be held during the BOPA symposium. Congratulations are due to Nick Duncan, principal pharmacist for haematology and oncology at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham and Liz Miller, advanced clinical pharmacist for palliative care at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for recently achieving Fellowship and Full membership respectively of the FCP. They are particularly to be applauded for following the tight deadlines necessitated by the CPP closure. All Fellows of the FCP have indicated that they are willing to provide mentorship and advice to any members wishing to prepare for the assessment process. Geoff Saunders, FCP Chair BOPA Bulletin Issue 1 Summer 2010
Update to the Innovation BOPA Strategic Plan 2009 –12 I would like to use the opportunity of the first BOPA Bulletin to update members on progress with the Strategic Plan that I presented at last year’s Annual General Meeting We said BOPA would better meet the needs of existing members and attract new members • The Executive Committee asked Succinct Communications to undertake e-surveys and focus groups with members at last year’s annual symposia. The results of these, together with Succinct Communications’ suggestions for proposed actions, can be found in the ‘Position statements and publications’ page of the members section of the BOPA website. We have already implemented many of the proposed actions and it is our belief that moving forward with the Strategic Plan will assist BOPA in meeting the needs of current and future members, as identified by your responses to the surveys and focus groups. • You explained to us that the BOPA website was one of your key reasons for being a member of BOPA. In March 2010, we put a specification out to tender for the provision of a new, more functional, professional and user friendly website. You will find more information on this development in the news section (p6). • You told us that the BOPA newsletter was another service that you valued, although you suggested that it needed to be improved. As stated in the Chair’s introduction (p4), we have decided to partner with BJ Clin Pharm to provide this BOPA Bulletin and hope that this, our first BOPA Bulletin under the new arrangement, meets with your approval. We said BOPA would deliver an education and training programme that is fit for purpose and accessible to all • You told us that the annual symposia was another of the key services you valued as a BOPA member. The programme for this year’s event is now confirmed and can be found at www.bopasymposium. org. Once again, it is a joint conference with our colleagues in the United Kingdom BOPA Bulletin Issue 1 Summer 2010 Oncology Nurses Society. The Committee always reviews your feedback forms when deciding on the programme for the next year. After Brighton 2009, you said you wanted more sessions for advanced practitioners – this year there will be a ‘soft skills’ stream aswell as, hopefully, some poster discussion sessions. • You told us that the provision of e-based learning would be extremely desirable. We have received several responses to a specification for an e-learning website that we sent to a number of potential providers earlier on this year. Once we have assessed the quotes, we will decide on a provider and will then enter into discussions with potential partners in the pharmaceutical industry to help fund this initiative. • You said you very much valued BOPA study days. In the long term, we plan to include funding for the provision of study days in the discussions mentioned above. That way, we should be able to run BOPA study days that may not intrinsically lend themselves to sponsorship. In the short term, we have agreed plans to run at least three study days this year – on breast cancer, prostate cancer and pharmacogenetics. We said BOPA would ensure current and future pharmacy workforce needs are addressed at national level • In my Chairman’s introduction to the February 2009 newsletter I stated that the Committee has agreed to work to implement some of the recommendations from the BOPA ‘Cancer plan and the pharmacy contribution to cancer care’ paper from 2001. To this end, BOPA has now published its ‘Standards for clinical pharmacy verification of prescriptions for cancer medicines’ and the more detailed supporting guidance, which we hope will allow a degree of standardisation of practice in the UK. In addition, we are now in the process of validating in a number of trusts the process times expected if these standards were to be followed, in order to produce a final validated BOPA ‘Clinical pharmacy capacity planner.’ It is our hope that these standards and the planner will allow trusts to compare their services against a national baseline and help us to understand where there are gaps. Only then can we seek to address these shortcomings at a local and national level. We said BOPA would facilitate and increase the research efforts of our members • The Committee agreed that the first stage of this work, the building of a research strategy document for consultation to members, should be led by the FCP. This work has been suspended until the future of the FCP and the Professional Leadership Body becomes clearer (see the FCP Chair’s introduction for more information, p4). We said BOPA would ensure that its members’ views are represented at national level • The Committee will propose some changes to the constitution at this year’s AGM that we believe will both allow the Committee to be more representative of its diverse membership and also help more members to get involved in the work of BOPA, without major time commitment. We hope this will enable us to be more responsive and representative as an organisation. In summary, I believe we are making good progress in delivering the Strategic Plan and thank the members of the Committee for their hard work which, I think it is important to remember, is often undertaken in their own time and for free. However, I believe that to truly deliver what members need, we need you to be more involved. Your BOPA needs you! 5
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What might the current Westminster Government mean for ... - BOPA

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