The Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland (PSNI) yesterday published its “corporate strategy for 2025-2030″, setting out a list of ambitions it hopes to achieve over the course of the next five years.
A joint statement from the PSNI president Dr Geraldine O’Hare and chief executive Canice Ward predicted the strategy will “begin a new chapter in the development and transformation journey” of the society.
Read more: PSNI hikes fees 20% after flunking record number of standards
“We anticipate a period of significant change in the delivery of pharmaceutical care and healthcare” in the coming years, said the pair, noting that “it will be necessary” to change as an organisation “to keep up with the demands and expectations of the public, professionals and government”.
The PSNI must ensure it has “the capability, capacity and agility to respond to change in a timely manner”, they stressed.
According to Northern Ireland’s pharmacy regulator, “associated business plans” will be published to support the five-year strategy with a “mid-point review” planned for 2027.
Modern legislation
The corporate strategy sets out five key objectives to:
- Deliver “high quality” regulation that is “effective, consistent, safe and fair”
- “Continually improve” its fitness to practise (FtP) processes to be “more agile, efficient and proactive”
- Value its registrants, stakeholders and staff and be “an accountable organisation with effective people, governance and operations to complete [its] core regulatory functions”
- “Modernise the legislation and governing structures” of the organisation
- Develop and modernise its standards and guidance “to strengthen pharmacy governance”
Read more: PSNI moots plans to scrap ‘historic’ automatic overseas recognition
And some of the goals within these objectives include:
- Aspiring to “meet all performance standards in annual Professional Standards Authority (PSA) appraisals”
- Reforming its FtP processes “to support enhanced communication, transparency and efficiencies”
- Developing strategies to “mitigate future fee rises”, “minimising these where necessary” and implementing “new payment methods to assist in managing registrants’ financial obligations”
- Keeping abreast of regulatory reforms across the UK and advocating for change “if considered beneficial to the pharmacy profession in Northern Ireland”
- Modernising its standards and guidance “to ensure they are reflective of current and future practice”
- Considering “who can join and remain” on the register and “what type of premises” the PSNI will “permit to join the register”
Read more: ‘Challenging period’: PSNI mulls fee rise as it doubles president’s pay
Dr O’Hare said that the strategy will “guide” the PSNI in the coming years “to be a modern, fit-for-purpose, right-touch regulator of the pharmacy profession in Northern Ireland”.
And Ward said that “the pharmacy profession continues to undergo significant transformation”, explaining that “as a consequence, the PSNI must also transform and modernise to ensure it keeps abreast of the developments within the profession”.
Read more: PSNI fails to hire new chief executive amid concerns
It comes after the PSNI launched its new “code of conduct, ethic and performance” last month to set out the “professional standards” expected of all pharmacists.
Meanwhile, the PSA slammed the Northern Irish pharmacy regulator in March 2024 for “registration errors”, taking “too long” to complete fitness-to-practise (FtP) cases and an “inability” to provide “accurate information”.
