2.1.3 Professional empowerment

Question 1

Professional empowerment is about…

Answer 1

Professional empowerment is about enabling professionalism and professional judgement.

Question 2

At an individual level, professional empowerment is about…

Answer 2

At an individual level for pharmacists and future pharmacists, it is about the development of knowledge, skills, experience and confidence, and the cultivation of professional values and behaviours. These collectively imbue pharmacists with authority, empowering and enabling professionalism and the ability to manage ethical dilemmas.

Question 3

At a wider level, it is about…

Answer 3

Creating an environment around an individual that enables all the above.

Professional training starts at university and is enhanced with the foundation training year by learning, designated supervisors and training programmes. In professional practice, it is selfcultivated through revalidation and continuing professional development (CPD), continuing education, and supported by the RPS through our foundation and advanced practice programmes.

Question 4

What do the GPhC standards require?

Answer 4

The GPhC standards for registered pharmacies require that staff are empowered and competent to safeguard the health, safety and wellbeing of patients and the public (see appendix 5 for further information).

Question 5

How does RPS cobtribute to GPhC standard requirements?

Answer 5

The RPS contributes to creating empowerment through guidance, standards, news and alerts, webinars and our mentoring programme, our leadership development framework, influencing policy and embedding and nurturing the right culture.

Our resource Reducing workplace pressure through professional empowerment discusses various ways to reduce workplace pressure. The document is designed to help by empowering pharmacists, as individuals, to take action if they are adversely affected by workplace pressures and includes:

• Mechanisms for raising concerns
• Promoting management skills
• Ensuring pharmacists take breaks
• Professionalism and managing commercial pressures
• Job satisfaction.

Question 6

How do employers play a key role?

Answer 6

by providing structured training resources and events, conferences, opportunity and time for CPD, support from the superintendent’s office, company alerts and updates, and developing and implementing the right organisational culture that enables professional empowerment.

Other pharmacy organisations, stakeholders and training providers are also integral to enabling professionalism through training, and enabling the right environment for professionalism to flourish, including through getting the culture right.

FURTHER READING
Royal Pharmaceutical Society
Leadership development framework and accompanying handbook.

www.rpharms.com
Royal Pharmaceutical Society
Reducing workplace pressure through professional empowerment.

www.rpharms.com
Royal Pharmaceutical Society
Working as a locum.

www.rpharms.com
General Pharmaceutical Council
Guidance to support the standards for registered pharmacies

www.pharmacyregulation.org
(see MEP Appendix 2)
General Pharmaceutical Council
Standards for pharmacy professionals.

www.pharmacyregulation.org
(see MEP Appendix 1)