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FIP Regulators Advisory Group

Governmental and professional organisations with regulatory functions play an important and decisive role in overseeing the pharmacy profession and setting standards of practice, ethical conduct and public protection, namely by regulating workforce capacity and sustained performance and the scope of practice of pharmacists, to ensure patient safety and optimal health outcomes.

Recognising the need for international collaboration and potential coordination in terms of pharmacy regulation, in 2018, FIP established a permanent group for pharmacy professional regulators to advise FIP and to enable FIP to advise and engage regulators on changing needs and emerging developments: the FIP Regulators Advisory Group.

This group provides a global platform for pharmacy professional regulators to share best practices, emerging trends and needs for the profession and associated regulations, thus contributing to protecting the public and achieving optimal health outcomes through a competent and adequately regulated pharmacy profession. This is mainly accomplished through collaboration among group members in:

  1. Identifying key challenges and opportunities for pharmacy regulators at global, regional and national level, and developing tools and guidelines to address them
  2. Sharing and actively promoting innovative and evidence-based regulatory practices
  3. Sharing standards of practice and disciplinary options
  4. Sharing disciplinary data as appropriate
  5. Identifying challenges and opportunities in terms of workforce capacity and mobility, in coordination with other areas and constituencies across FIP.

The Terms of Reference of the group are here.

The group is chaired by Mr Brett Simmonds, a pharmacist and a regulator from Australia, since December 2022. The group is governed by a nimble and expert committee composed of members from different geographical areas, ensuring global representation.

Would you like to join the group? Membership is open to organisations that meet the following description: "ministries or organisations that regulate, inspect and/or accredit pharmacy practice, including education, for the protection of the public."

Some organisations may combine regulatory and other functions, such as advocacy or negotiating roles. Such organisations may become members of the group to collaborate on issues related to professional regulation.

Please find below useful tools developed by the group:

Pharmacy led vaccination services: Regulatory self-assessment and implementation tool
     
  This self-assessment tool, developed by the group, aims to help countries self-assess readiness of their regulations to enable pharmacist-delivered vaccination services and, where needed, to implement such regulations. This resource covers the broad pharmacist-led roles related to vaccination from supply chain management to administration and prescribing. You may access the tool here.

Pharmacy-based pandemic vaccination programme: Regulatory self-assessment tool

This self-assessment tool, developed by the group, helps to identify strengths and areas for improvement in order to inform pandemic planning efforts ahead of current and future waves of COVID-19. It is an aid to help national ministries of health and regulators in assessing pandemic preparedness and the state of legislation and regulations within their countries to facilitate mass vaccination and testing and enhanced patient care through pharmacists and community pharmacies. Access the tool here in English. Translation is available in FrenchSpanish and Portuguese.

Management of non-communicable diseases: Regulatory self-assessment and development tool for transforming pharmacy practice

Regulators, ministries of health, policymakers and national pharmacy organisations are encouraged to assess regulations in their country related to pharmacy-based care of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) with a development tool developed by FIP's Forum of Pharmacy Professional Regulators. This tool is based on experiences from countries where pharmacy services targeting NCDs (including testing, measurement of parameters, such as blood pressure and peak expiratory volume, and prescribing or modifying prescriptions) have been successfully introduced and regulated, and on researched pharmacy practice legislation from around the world. You may access the tool here.

Substandard and falsified medical products: Regulatory self-assessment tool

  This regulatory self-assessment tool seeks to aid the detection of, quarantine and removal of substandard and falsified (SF) medical products from the pharmaceutical supply chain in a country and to prevent SF medical products from being used by patients. It also includes SF medical products incident information sharing and public awareness. The self-assessment tool identifies the role of ministries of health, and FIP intends that this regulatory framework be adopted for other healthcare professions and become applicable to all healthcare workers. Access the tool here, also available in FrenchPortuguese and Spanish

Find more information about FIP membership and further member benefits here. Questions can be sent to fip@fip.org.

Please contact Ms Paula Cohen for more information about the Regulators Advisory Group at paula@fip.org

Last update 10 October 2024

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