PGEU publishes its vision for the pharmacy profession in a paper titled “Pharmacy 2030: A Vision for Community Pharmacy in Europe”.

PGEU President Michał Byliniak stated: “This year PGEU celebrates its 60th anniversary. It is time to acknowledge the pharmacy profession’s vital contribution to the health of people over the last decades and to look to the future to how the profession can further enhance this contribution and help to strengthen Europe’s health systems.”

“In light of common challenges for European healthcare systems such as financial sustainability, shortages of healthcare workers and the increasing burden of chronic diseases, we must recognise, support and develop the role of community pharmacists in providing highly accessible and quality patient care and prevention services.”

“Community pharmacists want to use their position as highly skilled healthcare professionals working at the heart of European communities to further improve public health in a changing healthcare environment requiring more personalised, patient-centred and digital focus.”

The PGEU Vision for Community Pharmacy 2030 outlines 10 key recommendations:

1. Maximise the benefits of the community pharmacist’s intervention for patients and healthcare systems by promoting pharmaceutical services to improve treatment outcomes and adherence and to minimise risks;
2. Involve community pharmacists in collaborative care models;
3. Grant community pharmacists access to all relevant patients’ health information and the list of medications they are taking;
4. Consult pharmacists on the integration of new digital solutions in healthcare;
5. Allow pharmacists to help progress the digitalisation of healthcare as trusted sources for health information;
6. Support pharmacists in integrating pharmacogenomics, validated clinical rules and real-world data in their daily practice to improve patient safety;
7. Support community pharmacists in offering health screening, medicines management, health promotion and education to help reduce the overall burden of chronic diseases;
8. Establish regulatory frameworks to maximise the value of the highly-accessible community pharmacies network to the communities they serve;
9. Ensure that community pharmacists can provide patients with the full range of medicines and medical devices they need;
10. Ensure that remuneration for community pharmacists properly reflects their contribution to improving pharmaceutical care, reducing the burden on other health services and supporting the sustainability of health systems.