Welcome to the AJP podcast, A podcast for pharmacists by pharmacists where we discuss current events, relevant topics, and emerging issues. I'm your host, Carlene McMaugh, and together with the AJP I'm bringing you the opinions and expertise of different pharmacists to discuss their views and insights on topics relevant to pharmacists. Please like and rate each episode and subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss an episode.
Tom, are you able to do your introduction first?
I'm Tom Simpson. I'm National President of Advanced Pharmacy Australia.
And Kate, are you able to do your introduction as well, please? Yeah.
So I'm Kate O'Hara. I'm the Vice President of Advanced Pharmacy Australia.
Thank you. Can I ask you both, and maybe Tom, you go first. Why was the name of the SHPA changed to Advanced Pharmacy Australia? I guess that's a big question on everybody's mind. Can you tell us a little bit about it?
Yeah, that's a big question, I guess with a bit of history tied up in it, but I think if you look at what the name was in 2024, it didn't align with where our members were anymore. So a lot of our members, in fact, really for the last 20, 25 years, a lot of our members haven't worked in hospital.
They've worked in a range of settings, governed care settings like aged care or regulatory services and quality use and medicines roles, as well as increasing roles in GP practices or in other forms of clinical practice and consulting. So we knew that the setting in which our members were practicing had changed, but also for 25 years now, our organisation has recognized pharmacy technicians as members, and I think they were granted voting status over a decade
ago. And more recently, just this year, our members voted to change the constitution to recognize a pharmacy technician director on the board of directors. So all of these things had shifted in the ecosystem and the name no longer actually matched up with where our members were practising or what we'd been about for some time. So we thought it was time to modernise.
Society was a bit dated as well. So Advanced Pharmacy Australia, we think really represents what it is that our members are practising nowadays, and that's not about them all being advanced practitioners, it's not elitist. It's saying that there's a kind of pharmacy practice where you get to use all of your decision-making skills and collaborate in teams or multidisciplinary teams and support evidence-based medicine and focus on the patient.
And that is a journey of advancement that starts from the very beginning of your career all the way through in how you practice. And obviously there's a link there with our recognition program through ANZCAP, the College of Advanced Pharmacy. See, that's been the journey to this point.
Great. Kate, do you have anything that you'd like to add?
Yeah, I think a lot of it comes from conversations we were having with members and different words that members were using when we talked to them and what members' values were and where we see our influence being most effective in improving patient care. It's also part of a change in our profession. We've seen over the last 10 to 15 years a big change in the kind of medicines that we're working with.
We are not just dispensing packets of pills anymore where there's all of the advanced therapeutics, there's advanced clinical trials, far therapies, pharmacogenomics, and all of the pharmacy impacts that we've had on making digital health safer for our patients. This is the way the profession's going and it's the way of the future. And being on the front foot there and helping our members really lead in that space is an important thing for us as an organisation.
Thank you. May I ask how members and pharmacists have been responding to the name change and I guess the broader description of what Advanced Pharmacy Australia encompasses?
Look, there's been a spectrum of responses. This is an 82-year-old organisation, and even for me, I've still got a little bit in my head that just hears SHPA and think, ah, I like that. But I think we've had lots of people say, look, so glad it's changed. It was long past time. We've had people say that they really like the name. We've had some people say, eh, not sure about it, but I'll get used to it. And it's been nice to have conversations with people who've been members.
I had a conversation with someone, I won't name names, but a member, someone who's been a member for longer than I've been alive recently, who was saying Congratulations on the name change.
It was well overdue. So look, there's definitely been a spread of responses and it'll take us all a bit of time to adjust, but I think everyone can see how important it is to be an organisation that represents what it is that our members are doing now in 2024 and beyond, and not just tie it to a particular class of practitioner or setting.
Thank you. And Kate, what were your thoughts?
Yeah, look, I think the responses as you'd expect, it's a lot of people to engage in things and we've seen a lot of really different responses. I think what I've really appreciated it has been the level of engagement from members. It's nice to see people feel comfortable to talk to us and raise their positives, their negatives, ask more questions.
And I really think the level of engagement in our members shows that this is an activated member organisation that really wants to do the best they can.
Brilliant. So I understand that the name change was done with a mandate rather than seeking member consultation. Are you able to tell me a little bit about that?
Look, this has been a significant process to go through over a fair period of time, and along the way it's been understanding the appetite for change and understanding the values of our members.
So we've done a fair bit of work to understand where are our members working now and what kind of practice are they doing That's really led up to this point, but I think all the information was there for the board to say, yes, this is a reasonable and a good decision to make on behalf of the members and the organisation to give them the strong voice that they deserve.
Fantastic. So can I ask what the goals are of Advanced Pharmacy Australia and have they changed from the goals of SHPA?
That's a really good question because under the hood, the organisation and its goals haven't changed. It's about 25 years ago now that the constitution of the organisation, which guides its purpose, was changed from being an exclusively hospital focused organisation to something that actually is about medication management and quality use of medicines in all settings, whether that's the hospital or the home.
So it's been the mandate of the organisation for a long time now, and to me it's the name's almost playing catch up with the kinds of things we've been advocating for the organisation, what it does for people doesn't change because it's such a strong organisation and the offerings, I've been a member for all of my professional life and my professional journey has been completely changed because of my membership of SHPA, now AdPha. It's made me a better practitioner.
It's connected me with colleagues from across the country. It's given me education. It's given me that wonderful national conference, and I can remember pretty much every single one I've ever been to where it was and what year. So it is the same organisation, but it is also about saying there's a lot of practices and a lot of practices that we see in pharmacy settings. A lot of them have their genesis at some point in hospitals.
You look at the journey we're taking now with pharmacists prescribing. The first conference that I went to, which talked about pharmacists prescribing was, I think it was 2007 when Greg Weeks had done some work in Victoria to bring an independent prescribing program from Scotland to Australia. That's nearly two decades ago. That's where some of those first conversations started, and we had partner charting in our collaborative prescribing model 12 years ago now.
So lots of these kind of functions and stewardship roles around any microbial stewardship. Basically, you look at some of these advanced roles and you can trace their lineage back, not just through the organisation and through the journal and through the conferences, but to a lot of the practices in hospitals that kind of ripple out and then just start to become mainstream. So I think this is about the organisation saying, actually it doesn't actually matter where those things are happening.
It doesn't matter if you're doing antimicrobial stewardship in a hospital, in a community setting, supporting GPs, supporting aged care compliance with antimicrobial stewardship. You are and infectious diseases pharmacists providing that service in any setting. And that's a really important role to recognize and connect those people with their peers across the country independent of the setting that they're working in. So yeah, that's my view on what does and doesn't change.
The answer is nothing really changes. The organisation does what it's always done for the people. It's always done, but the name now recognizes the people who are working in those settings.
And I think a really key piece that a lot of people in governance roles in the organisation, the board, the branches, we receive lots of requests, particularly for advocacy from various members. And when we try and raise our voices or get in the room, people are like, oh, well you just do hospital. And it's sometimes hard to complete the work that our members are asking us to do because of the different locations and the different roles that they practice in.
And it's hoped by having a name that's a little bit wider that it'll be easier for people to say, okay, this isn't just about hospitals, and we can do that work that members are asking us to do.
Thank you. That makes a lot of sense. May I ask, what else would you like pharmacists to know about Advanced Pharmacy Australia that they may not know currently?
Look, I think it's an organisation with a large member base close to, I think it's what in four pharmacists are an AdPha member or something of that order. And so there's a wonderful thriving community, particularly community of specialty practice. We have 33 communities of specialty practice. I think we now have that link people from all across the country.
So if you are working in a role like men's health or infectious diseases or pain management and opioid stewardship through to general medicine and geriatrics, there are communities of specialty practice there for you to link you on your journey. And I think another thing just to add to is no matter what type of pharmacy practitioner you are, whether pharmacist, pharmacy technician, intern student, there is a member role for you and there are a member offerings for you as well.
We offer something for everybody. We across a broad range of specialty areas, broad stages of practice. If you are involved in pharmacy and want to work at the top of your scope, we have something for you. But I think the biggest thing that we offer is our collective member wisdom. Our communities and our specialty practice groups and our experts in all the different aspects of advanced pharmacy are really where our power and our wealth lies.
And if you haven't been involved with our organisation before and you have a question or you want to talk to people, please reach out and think about the fact that our members really are one of the biggest things that we offer in our collective wisdom.
There's a whole journey I guess that is great to join up across that we really can do now across the spectrum of care settings. I visited a community pharmacy recently where they have a pharmacist there who is recognized as a specialist in men's health,
and obviously they're working in that setting. And I was just thinking, wouldn't it be great to have them connected with everyone who's working in that setting no matter where they are, whether they're in a hospital setting, dealing with acute things in a community setting, dealing with the consequences of those acute things, joining all of those conversations up is just such an important thing so that no one ever feels like they're practicing alone even when they're working solo.
And it's really about supporting patient safety through those transitions of care and advocating to make sure that whatever we're doing, we're keeping our patients as safe as possible and helping them to reach their own health goals. So particularly working across those transitions of care and those services peripheral to the hospitals that we've already been so involved in, but our name hasn't reflected really about improving patient safety.
Thank you. So what does the future look like for Advanced Pharmacy Australia?
Look, sorry, I'm just gathering my thoughts to make a cogent sentence. Kate, I might, can you go first if that's okay?
Yeah. Look, the future is about supporting our members to be at the top of scope, making sure the patient is at the center of everything we do and that every part of pharmacy practice they're involved with and engaged with is the best possible pharmacy care it can be. It's about completing the advocacy work that our members are asking for.
It's about getting in the room and having our members' voices heard and really taking the collective wisdom that our members have gathered over our 82 year history and sharing that with the profession as loudly and as widely as we can.
Absolutely. I couldn't have said it better myself, Kate.
So now I wanted to find out a little bit about, I guess your year in review before I find out a little bit more from Kate about the FIP and how the conference went. But I thought I'd find out about some of the challenges that I guess SHPA and Advanced Pharmacy Australia overcame and face this year and then find out a little bit about the achievements that you achieved this year as well.
Look, it's been an interesting year and medication shortages and currently the fluid shortages are very much top of mind for the kinds of challenges that we're all dealing with. I think I looked at the TGA website and there was something like 500 shortages just the other day. So I think that's challenging all of us in all settings as to how we manage that and respond to that. Look, it has been a year of opportunity. I think as well.
We've got state and federal governments very focused on the value that pharmacists can deliver to the health system in a way like we've never had before, and a willingness to remove some of those barriers to top of scope practice. So I think for us, it's been a year of really driving that conversation forward and advocating for the kinds of practices that we know we can deliver in a range of care settings
that make the best use of our expertise. And look, the years also had some, I guess, sorry, I was about to answer your next question. I'll stop there about the good things that have happened. I'll let you ask that question.
There's some other things that we've achieved this year. Partner charting is now going live in New South Wales and well on the way in WA as well joining the other states across Australia. And our advocacy has been a key part of that. The new clinical standards of practice will be released later this year, which has been a massive undertaking over the last 18 months from members across the organisation and external stakeholders to set the standard for hospital practice.
And that's very exciting for all of us to have those published later this year.
Indeed, the clinical pharmacy practice standards is such an exciting piece of work. I mean, it's been mammoth, there's been a lot of effort that's gone into them, but this is the practice standard for the practice of clinical pharmacy, how you review a patient and support them to achieve their health outcomes in any setting. And it's a document I'm really proud of. We're launching it at MM 24, which is that conference in Adelaide in mid-November.
And there's a few things that I'm really proud of that it takes a very contemporary approach around what clinical pharmacy looks like in 2024, including again, that integrated use of the entire workforce. We're no longer having just separate chapters for what the technician workforce can do. It's now woven through every task where it's relevant to have that as an embedded element of practice, and it really reflects that whole journey of our patients of cycling through
transitions of care and care settings. Really exciting, challenging piece of work.
Thank you. So those are the main achievements and some of the challenges that you've overcome. Kate, did you have anything you want to share about some of the challenges that SHPA Advanced Pharmacy Australia have overcome this year as well?
I think like most organisations that rely on member volunteers, everybody is tired. So we're making sure we're supporting our members from a wellbeing perspective as well as just a clinical perspective. So there's more to the holistic offerings in that space and making sure that everybody's well supported from a wellbeing perspective.
I'm sure you're familiar with the work that Carly Johnson and others have done on pharmacist burnout. In fact, she was awarded the medal of merit by the organisation last year, and we've had a number of sessions on pharmacists burnout throughout the year. So yeah, it's been really good as Kate says, not just to take that look on what are the clinical challenges we're dealing with, but how do we all keep on going when only more is asked of us?
So it challenges. There's also another, I guess, exciting thing I'd like to talk about too, which is the college, the Australian New Zealand College of Advanced Pharmacy. We reached a milestone just two months ago now where we had just under two and a half thousand people who've been recognized now through the college
that's in a 12 month period or just under. That's a wonderful achievement to me, and it really speaks to that untapped demand for pharmacists to be recognized for the advanced or specialty skills that they are bringing to their work of patient care. It's not that shy of
10% of the entire profession in that time period. Since then, of course, we've opened up the independent program as well as our workplace led residency and registrar programs, which really opened up opportunities for anyone to go through that recognition pathway on their journey. We were delighted to see too a number of private hospitals recently investing in the residency program in a very big way. So really great to see that work pay off and become part of the architecture
of what professional upskilling looks like. As a pharmacist in Australia, when I was a pharmacy intern or an early career pharmacist, there was no pathway for how you became an ICU pharmacist, a geriatrics pharmacist, a pain management pharmacist, whatever. There was your intern year and then you were done.
Were top of scope on day one and at such an exciting time in 2024. Now is scope is fluid and evolving, but also as we now have these properly designed pathways that mean that a practitioner starting on day one of their career can see now what that journey looks like as they progress from the first thousand days of practice through intern and residency if it's available to them to registrar and then consultant level accreditation in specialty practice domains.
So that's been really thrilling to see this year, that uptake. And I should say that uptake is certainly not entirely limited to AdPha members. The college is available, it is a profession wide offering. It is not limited to any particular member organisation and a significant proportion, it's somewhere of the order of 10 to 20% of people who have gone through that program have not been a for members,
nor have they necessarily worked in hospitals. So again, really that for me is one of the great pleasures in 2024 looking back on.
Fantastic. And can I ask what some of the focus is for 2025 for Advanced Pharmacy Australia? What are you currently working on and hoping will change for the next year?
So more standards of practice in specialty areas. There are more in the pipeline. So coming through for the rest of our specialty practice leadership groups, further consolidation of our communities and expansion of our communities offering to help people access that collective wisdom of our members and more advocating on behalf of our members trying to get done all the things that they're asking for us and doing everything we can to promote safe patient care.
Absolutely, and look, couldn't have said it better, but I think the advocacy piece there is really important. We are on the cusp of, we've just had a health technologies review. We've just, we're having the scope of practice review, which is the findings we're just made available this week.
And one of the things we've been advocating for a long time has been for equitable access to pharmaceutical funding across hospitals where, as you may be aware, we have pharmaceutical funding available in most of Australia, but not in New South Wales and the ACT where the PBS isn't part of the public hospitals there. So again, a big part of our advocacy for 2025, we want to see equity for all Australians in access to the PBS in every setting, not just on a state by state basis.
So there's lots of things that I guess we're advocating for that are relevant and people across the country, and particularly in New South Wales and the ACT.
Thank you. So now Kate, I believe you went to the FIP conference and I thought I would ask you how your experience was and what stood out for you at the FIP conference.
Look, it was such an incredible experience to get to go to Cape Town and meet with so many incredible pharmacists practicing in such different places. It was lovely to meet lots of African pharmacists who were doing amazing things in incredibly low resource settings, particularly spoke to a pharmacist who was doing a AMS in Sierra Leone, and I thought that was just an incredible piece of work that their team was working on three and a half thousand pharmacists most days.
So lots and lots of people with lots of shared wisdom, and I think it was interesting to see that the issues facing pharmacists in Australia, while they might be different to pharmacists in say Africa or South America on a kind of day to day level, overall, they're the same across the world.
Our profession is talking about prescribing rights and scope of practice and getting care to patients in a healthcare worker shortage and how we can all do better to make sure that the people who need care are getting it.
Fantastic. Were there any key takeaways or any additional key takeaways that you got from the sessions and some of the networking that you got to do?
Yes, that we are more powerful collectively than we are on our own. That the differences between community and hospital pharmacy aren't what they were 10 years ago, and that pharmacists have a huge amount to offer stretched healthcare systems across the globe, and we need to really harness all of our skills and all the things we can do.
Thank you. Now, I might ask if there's, so I finished my questions, but I wanted to ask if there was anything else that I haven't asked you or anything else that you wanted to share with the audience?
No, I think I'm good, Kate.
No, I think we're just keen to talk to people about Advanced Pharmacy Australia and yeah, start harnessing that power of all of us as a collective profession.
Is there anything that you wanted to, I guess, a sentiment or anything for pharmacists as the year closes and as we look to, well, because by the time this is released, it'll be the year closing and about to, so any sentiments or goodwill gestures for pharmacists at the end of the year in the beginning of next year?
I think adding on what Kate just said, that power of being part of something and having a voice, we are at a really exciting time in the Australian healthcare system. And no matter what professional organisation you're a member of, it is just important to be part of something that elevates your voice, that connects you to your peers and colleagues. Pharmacy is a wonderful profession. Beyond that, it's a wonderful community.
I derive great pleasure from being part of a community of practice and friends and part of a membership organisation. Being part of Advanced Pharmacy Australia has changed my life and given my career opportunities that I couldn't have possibly expected. And now it's wonderful to see that bearing fruit actually changing the care that patients can receive.
So I'm ending the year on tremendous optimism for our profession and what it means, not just for us, but for patients who get better access to the expertise that we have spent our professional lifetimes developing. I'm an optimistic person. I'm very enthusiastic about the future.
I'm very similar to Tom. I'm very much an optimist at heart, and I think at the moment, I feel great hope for our profession that we'll be able to work in the changing healthcare landscape lead where our skills let us lead, and that we'll continue to inspire and encourage people to see pharmacy is a wonderful profession and a great choice of career, and just keep building on the skills that we already have and make sure people
know the skills we have and how we can help you make sure that the healthcare system is providing the best it can.
Fantastic. Thank you both so much. Thank you both for your time, for your insights, and for giving a nice summary for the audience of what's transpired to get us where we are now for Advanced Pharmacy Australia and what it looks like for the future and what you've achieved this year.
Thanks so much for having us, Carlene. Always a pleasure to talk.
Yeah, thank you. Thank you so.
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