Midlands Pharmacy Workforce Event

On 8 March 2023, Rosalyne Cheeseman, Pharmacy Dean, and Jackie Buxton, Regional Senior Pharmacy Integration Lead at NHS England, held a joint HEE/NHS England workforce event with attendance from key stakeholders across pharmacy sectors. The event was a huge success with approximately 70 delegates, representative of CEOs, directors of pharmacy, clinical leads, chief pharmacists, heads of school, pharmacists, chief operating officers, workforce leads, primary care network managers, pharmacy technicians, project managers, and many more. The aim of the event was to:

• facilitate collaboration and sharing of work across the Midlands Region to aid strengthening the development of the pharmacy workforce across each system;​
• bring together pharmacy workforce and education leads around workforce opportunities and challenges regionally​; and
• create increased familiarity with the breadth of workforce transformation​.

During the day there was a talk from Rosalyne and Richard Seal (Regional Chief Pharmacist, NHS England-Midlands) on the pharmacy workforce, education and training at a national and regional level. There was an insightful talk from Dr Hayley Wickens, Consultant Pharmacist Genomic Medicine, titled ‘Genomic: Everyone’s Business' and an informative talk on data by Joined up Care Derbyshire.

There was a wide range of workshops on offer throughout the day: Discharge Medicine Service; Independent Prescribing; Clinical Academic Careers; Future Leaders Showcase; MPharm Clinical Placement Emerging Models; Multisector Training and Employment Models; Skills Mix in Community Pharmacy; Health and Wellbeing of the Workforce. Attendees were given an opportunity to ask questions and network.

The event bought people together to share good practice and highlighted the importance of working together to address the workforce challenges.