‘We often assume a lot about others’

And we have a range of services that are both focusing on our patients who are within the hospital, but also our ambulatory patients who may be being treated in the home or through our outpatient clinics and such.

And I'm very fortunate I work alongside a great team of advanced practitioners from interns through to residents, through to very specialised pharmacists working across a whole range and working alongside some great other practitioners, our nursing colleagues, medical and other allied health colleagues who we work very closely with.

I also have a position as a professor of clinical pharmacy within Monash University and that is a great collaboration which allows us to be able to also collaborate on research projects. And I supervise a number of PhD students as well. And I've been fortunate enough to sit on a range of working groups and reference groups and committees across Australia and in Victoria focusing on medication use and shortages.

So I have a reasonable portfolio that includes both developing practice and supporting practitioners and having input into medication use and safety across a range of areas.

It's a challenging environment just because of the nature of the diversity that we see in hospitals and that may be from outpatient clinics through to intensive care units, emergency departments, and the services that are provided both in very large acute services through to those that are rural and regional.

So the challenges are there around the complexity associated with, I mean the services that are provided and the nature of the pressures that are associated with those, whether that be just due to workload, just due to the diversity of patients, just due to the challenges of providing care across a range of settings as those patients transition into hospitals and out of hospitals.

So there are a range of challenges and we've seen this continuing to grow as our services get more complicated as patients get more complicated as treatments get more complicated.

So it's the challenges in that system. I think there's the expectations of patients and their carers and their families as to the care they would like to be provided. We are all at some stage patients ourselves and patients rightly should have the choice associated with their care and be able to choose what happens to them as best they can. And so I think that's a real challenge is how do we balance the system and how do we balance the needs of the patients and the expectations of the patients.

And then there's the challenges associated with being the complexity of care. As we see more patients presenting with more complex conditions, comorbidities, we see the treatments, the medicines getting more and more complicated every day, the range of therapies available, the combinations of therapies, how we administer them, how we dose, how we educate, growing, and then we see our scope of practise also expanding.

And with that comes how do we educate, how do we make sure we support the individual pharmacists who are providing those, providing those roles across so many different settings. And then I think it's how do we look after our workforce? How do we make sure their role is and their work is done in a way that we look after their wellbeing, that we recognise them, that we develop them, that we provide those support.

So I think they're all the key things that go into quite a degree of complexity associated with the individual pharmacists providing care is the system, is the patient's, is their role, and then is how we support them and of course the medications that go with that.

And I think we need to be able to support pharmacists to be able to take on those responsibilities and to be able to practise safely and to be able to provide care that we want to provide, but do that in a way that we still look after their wellbeing, that they're remunerated appropriately, that we put the supports in place for them to practise.

So I think it's motivated me to be involved in hospital pharmacy practise group such as this is really, there's so much we want to be able to do, there's so much that there's so many opportunities, but we need to be able to support practitioners in undertaking those roles. And a group such as this I see as being able to work through how do we develop those services, how do we develop the practitioners, but how do we support them?

And I think the key bit that I think is interesting to me is how do we put those supports in place to be able to grow the opportunities for pharmacists to practise and to impact on patient's care and on the care that Australians receive.

But how do we do that and how do we help them do that in a supportive manner, whether that be through educational programmes, whether that be through advocacy, whether we do that through changes in policy, I think those individuals who are in leadership positions with that comes the responsibility to really support those going forward. And I just see it as a way of contributing.

We have Ian Coombes rom Queensland who's been instrumental over the long time in leading and developing services. We have Richard who's in South Australia leading the pharmacy, I suppose pharmacy programme there and doing wonderful work, Lisa, who many of the few will be know of Lisa's long time and passionate involvement in education and advancing services, not only across all sectors.

And then we have people who have probably been around a little less time and getting that flavour of some people who have got probably earlier on in their career who are working across a range of things, a range of areas, whether that be community medication reviews, hospital settings,

is getting that balance of people who have been around for a while. But also I think as important is the insight and the engagement of those that are developing in the services who have, I suppose, fresher eyes that can often give those insights that are even more important than some of us who have been possibly in roles for a long period of time. So the group that we put together is trying to get a mix of those that are working in the acute sector, hospital acute sector.

We have Bavini who's from the Northern Territory are working across all of the Northern Territory. So we've been trying to get a flavour of those that have got a lot of experience versus those that have got some new eyes, those that are in different states, those are in private and public sector and those that are early career.

So I think it's a wonderful group to be working with and no doubt there'll be others that will come on board that will be able to support and challenge the thinking in regards to what we should be doing for hospital practise going forward.

So really the main, what I would like to achieve I think is been able to put like-minded individuals together to really set a bit of a vision for the organisation and for others. That's the key bit I think, is developing a vision and engaging with those that got

their, I think heart and soul in the space. We really want to have a vision work alongside and with those that have got their heart and soul in working across hospitals and in those transition points so that we can work through what's the best way to support practitioners. If we can support practitioners, we can expand their roles and responsibilities, we can provide care better, which is I think what we'd all like to achieve.

But also we'd like to achieve that by being looked after in the workplace, be remunerated the right way to be respected and have our role within those multidisciplinary groups work alongside other practitioners.

So I think it's really about having a group that can help set the vision and can work alongside those who are passionate about what they do to support both the services, but most importantly support the practitioners, the pharmacists who are providing those services so that they can do the things they want to do and be supported to do that.

The practitioners who work across those settings, whether it be in community practise, whether it be gps, whether it be residential age facilities, wherever those links are incredibly important. I think we need to be able to continue to develop those links. We need to continue to be able to develop services that follow the patient. We need to be able to continue to support practitioners who work across the different settings.

And so I think a real strength here is this group will be able to look more broadly looking at focusing on our patients and how we practise in the hospital setting, but most importantly how we integrate those practices, how we have those collaborations across, not just the hospital setting. So I think from the organisational perspective, I think is fantastic to be able to work and collaborate with individuals across such a

wider space. Our patients most of the time will be in hospitals for part of their care, but most of the patients that we look at is they're not with us in the four walls, they're outside. So now I think and having the ability to work within PSA where there is that ability to advocate, influence and support practitioners more widely is a fantastic strength.

We might not know exactly what a GP does, or we might not know the challenges associated with nurses who work in different settings. We have assumptions. So I think what's really important is that we get to, I think the first thing is understanding what we do, but also understanding what others do. What are their expertise, what are their challenges? And by understanding that we can then be able to collaborate where we can share our expertise and we can fill gaps.

But also it allows us to understand where there's a commonality. The challenges for an individual practitioner, whether that be a nurse or a pharmacist, they're often the same degrees of isolation. So I think understanding within pharmacy and what pharmacists do in different settings is probably the first place. We often don't, people often working in hospitals don't necessarily understand the challenges associated with someone working,

doing reviews by themselves. As an isolated pharmacist, a community pharmacist may not necessarily fully understand the challenges associated with working in a hospital. So I think breaking down some of those barriers where people can share their experiences, understand their expertise of others, and understand that commonality of the challenges is a really good place to start.

And I think then I've noticed when working with medical staff, working with nursing staff, I probably learn learning more about what they do. I learn more about what my role is and where I can add value rather than that thinking, that's where I add value. So I think understanding what other pharmacists do in other settings is incredibly important. And I think understanding what other practitioners do and their challenges is incredibly important as well.

So for example, making sure that people are able to be supported in regards to their own practise, be supported around where their practise fits in with others, but at the same time be supported. So they've getting remunerated the right way, but also that they've got that they're wellbeings looked after, that they're getting supported, not only relating to their knowledge or practises as a pharmacist, been supported as an individual. Is their wellbeing taken into account?

Is the workload reasonable? If they're in challenging situations, are they being supported in regards to their health? So I think there's components associated with the individual knowledge and therapeutics where practises is changing, where the system is changing, whether that be technology, telehealth funding. So I think it all goes back to the complexity of the environment.

There's the complexity associated with the environment, there's the complexity associated with the therapeutics, there's the complexity associated with patients, there's complexity associated with medications, and all those four things is the real challenge.

practitioners, but also influence practise going forward. To do that, we need to understand what people need, understands their challenges, understand their priorities, and that way you can then work together to develop a shared vision of where we want to get to, and then use the expertise of the practitioners that have all

that understanding of the challenges that faces them. So I think it's really inviting individuals that want to shape the future of practise, who want to contribute to that, to have input. So we need to hear from others, we need to broaden the expertise. We need to focus on what people need. And to do that we actually, you need to hear what those who have got their heart and soul into this area of practise.

And we need their guidance. We need their passion, we need their collaborations to actually determine the vision and then shape the future. And so I would be saying to people, if you're interested in this space and you want to be able to influence it and you want to be able to contribute to it, then get involved. And.

passionate way. You can't solve everything quickly, you can't do everything. But I think in a year's time, I think it would be good that people believe there is a vision and there is an opportunity to influence the future. So that would be, I think the optimistic, big picture perspective I would like to see and have some surprises. I'd like to be surprised by what people want and want to achieve.

I'd love to see people who are coming out of the woodwork, so to speak, who have got some expertise, who have got some insight, who have got some experience, who have got some passion, who maybe haven't necessarily been able to contribute in the way they would like to, and is giving them an opportunity.

There are wonderful, fantastic pharmacists out there doing great things who want to support others, and it would be lovely to be able to see this as an opportunity for those individuals and the individuals I'd like to work alongside being having that chance to work together.

And I think that's practitioners who have been around for a while who have had a lot of experience, but also those that are new practitioners and those that trying to improve care and practise. So we want to see people getting involved across the breadth and depth of the profession. And I'm pretty excited that there will be, I would like to be very optimistic that there's going to be a great opportunity to put people together to be able to make a difference.