9.7 Advocacy statements and updates

As actioned by the January 2015 Board Meeting, the secretariat has prepated a first draft of a policy statement on hospital pharmacy’s contributions to meeting the challenges of an ageing society. Draft statement here. (AGE Platform Europe comments here)

Board comment is invited.

In summary, the draft statement calls for:

1. Increased uptake of hospital pharmacist roles in medication reconciliation and review as a key part of the European response to increasing prevalence of polypharmacy
2. Improved training of health professionals in the core aspects of dementia care
3. Further embedding of inter-sector communication and multi-disciplinary working as critical approaches to meeting the health system challenges of an ageing society
4. Regulatory innovation to improve the participation of older patients in clinical trials
5. A scale up in best practice sharing and adoption across Europe of measures to ensure the internal health system challenge of an ageing health workforce is successfully met.

Once the Board are content with a further developed draft, it is intended that the statement be made available for members to review and suggest amendment, as was conducted ahead of the 2014 General Assembly. Some helpful amendments to the antimicrobial resistance statement resulted.