Today, on the fifth anniversary of the Astana Declaration on primary health care, FIP has issued a document calling on its 156 national member organisations, individual members and global pharmacy agencies to take action to accelerate pharmaceutical workforce transformation. The “FIP Brisbane Calls to Action” document describes 10 actions, which include advocating enhanced training pathways for professional recognition to better address healthcare challenges, and developing adaptable systems, tools and mechanisms (including competency development frameworks), that will support the development of a range of progressive roles for pharmacists, including in preventive health care and prescribing. These actions were developed with the consensus of over 120 delegates from more than 40 countries attending a workforce symposium “Accelerating towards 2030: Workforce transformation for better health”, hosted by the FIP Global Pharmaceutical Observatory (GPO) and the FIP Hub in Brisbane, Australia, in September.

“This symposium represented a mid-term point between FIP’s Global Conference on Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences Education in 2016 — at which a global vision for the pharmaceutical workforce was created — and the World Health Organization Global Strategy on Human Resources for Health 2030 ambitions. This has marked a significant opportunity to review our pharmacy workforce transformation objectives, and our Brisbane Calls to Action were developed, driven by expert insights and current evidence from FIP GPO and Hub,” said FIP CEO Dr Catherine Duggan.