What do the Statements mean for Hospital Managers?

Hospital Management Boards have a difficult task, balancing clinical quality with the financial constraints that exist within all healthcare systems. In terms of identifying the Statements that are most relevant to the managers on the Board, whatever their professional background, a good starting point would be to check the patient Stakeholder page as what you will find here is what patients said they wanted from a hospital pharmacy.

Section 1, dealing with governance provides a set of Statements of relevance to Boards and Section 5, dealing with patient safety and quality assurance is what tends to attract the attention of regulators and organisations that provide quality accreditation for hospital.

In respect of individual statements of note, ensuring best use of resources, access to advice from a hospital pharmacist, planning for staff needs and ensuring service develop to meet the needs of patients and the hospital are all management issue.

With growing concern over antimicrobial resistance it is essential that the hospital has a well-functioning and representative Drug & Therapeutics Committee and a formulary. The latter being good clinical practice that can drive good procurement practices.

The 44 European Statements of Hospital Pharmacy cover the full range of services provided from hospital pharmacies across Europe. However, not all hospital pharmacies provide all the services covered by the Statements. This does mean that some Statements have greater importance than others for some hospital pharmacies.

The same is true for Stakeholders, some Statements will appear to have greater relevance than others. Stakeholders are encouraged to examine all the Statements for relevance to them. However, what is provided below are links to either sections of the Statements or the individual Statements where there is believed to be greater relevance. The choices have been driven through comments received from the various Stakeholders.