Pharmacy Education

We work with pharmacy support workers, pharmacy technicians and pharmacists to embed continuing professional development so they are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and networks to support patient care and develop their career.

We work across care boundaries and countries to highlight expert practice in paediatrics starting with pharmacy students through to experts across the globe. We aim to ensure that GOSH pharmacy provides a positive learning environment and is the number one choice for paediatric pharmacy development.

Further investment in our newly qualified pharmacist training programme has facilitated the development a range of education and support programmes. Over the next year we aim to enhance this offer and support practitioners to embed their Clinical Diploma in General Pharmacy Practice into their structure training pathway.

We continue to achieve a 100% pass rate with our commissioned NHS England (Workforce, Training, and Education) Trainees. We have supported 1 preregistration pharmacy technician and 5 foundation pharmacists to successfully join the register in 2023. We have strengthened our working relationship with University College, London (UCL) School of Pharmacy by increasing the number of undergraduate placements and co-sponsored research projects for undergraduates to five. The pharmacy department aims to become an accredited UCL centre this year.

Pharmacy continues to participate with the research agenda of the hospital by supporting research education. Two pharmacy employees are undertaking a National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) Clinical Doctoral Research Fellowship.

As we seek to increase access to professional careers we will be supporting learners to complete a Level 2 Science Manufacturing Apprenticeship within our pharmacy manufacturing unit, aiming to provide a structured career pathway for our unregistered workforce in the pharmacy department.

The educational team has worked with pharmacy operations to review the skill mix within the dispensary, and a dispensing mini-qualification was launched to enable unregistered team members to safely work within this new arena, which has supported a greater skill mix diversity.

A record number of pharmacy technicians have completed the ACPT course which enabled them to accurately check prescriptions. This was a key commitment the education team made to our legacy workforce as this skill was incorporated into the new undergraduate program. The continued support and development of technicians has led to a technician led dispensary, improving skill mix, and releasing pharmacists to undertake clinically focused work.