A brainstorming convention of the Indian Pharmaceutical Association (IPA) held in Kerala last week decided to release a white paper on the role of pharmacists in the National Healthcare Policy and would submit it to the ministry of health & family welfare soon.

This announcement was made in the convention by the president of IPA, Dr VSV Vadlamudi while inaugurating the convention at St. James College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chalakudi in Thrissur district.

The practicing pharmacists and the students of pharmacy from all the southern states and from Maharashtra and Goa, who have attended it, discussed several crucial issues encountered by the pharmacy professionals and deliberated up on measures to tackle them. According to Dr Vadlamudi the Indian pharmacists’ way of practice needs to undergo changes in order to make it on par with international level. For that, the pharmacists in India should evolve and develop an operational process fitting the global modus. They should observe the transitions occurring in the profession internationally and try to adapt them in order to modify the process here.

He said the pharmacists in India and elsewhere need to be recognised as healthcare professionals and their profession is the inevitable part of healthcare management. With this motto, the Indian pharmaceutical association is going to release a white paper on the role of pharmacists.

Even though focus is now given on pharmaceutical care in the whole practice, there should not be any compromise on the quality of medicines while manufacturing, transportation and storage. Quality assurance is the most important aspect in all stages. The role of a pharmacist is greater than what is imagined by the society.

His further comment was that those drugs which are not available in suitable forms need to be compounded for the benefits of individualised patient needs. Practice of compounding medicines is rarely seen now-a-days because of various reasons. He exhorted the healthcare professionals including doctors, regulatory officials and medical and pharmacy academia to join together for a collaborative effort to create a good healthcare management system with quality medicines and safe delivery.

The theme of the convention was ‘Generation Next Pharmacists’. This was the first programme conducted in Kerala by the community pharmacy division (CPD) of the IPA.