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ESCP wants your best practice! Deadline for abstract submissions 31 January 2025.

We want your best practice!

The European Society of Clinical Pharmacy (ESCP) and the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy (IJCP) are continuing the ‘Best Clinical Pharmacy Practice papers’ initiative. We are calling for clinical pharmacy practices and education that describe innovative and sustainable clinical pharmacy practices worth sharing, to be published in the IJCP.

Submissions are welcome from anyone! You don’t need to be an ESCP member or based in Europe!

What is best practice?

Best practices in clinical pharmacy relate to developments in practice and education, which are supported by thorough development and implementation processes along with high quality, robust and rigorous research evidence of evaluation outcomes. These outcomes may include aspects such as acceptability, adoption, (cost-)effectiveness, efficiency, satisfaction, sustainability, etc. Any areas of clinical pharmacy practice and education development in any setting will be considered.

Have a look at some Best Practice publications.

Hazen A, Sloeserwij V, Pouls B, et al. Clinical pharmacists in Dutch general practice: an integrated care model to provide optimal pharmaceutical care. Int J Clin Pharm. 2021;43:1155-1162.

Cheng C, Walsh A, Jones S, et al. Development, implementation and evaluation of a seven-day clinical pharmacy service in a tertiary referral teaching hospital during surge-2 of the COVID-19 pandemic. Int J Clin Pharm. 2023;45:293–303.

Howlett MM, Sutton S, McGrath EL, et al. Implementation of a national system for best practice delivery of paediatric infusions. Int J Clin Pharm. 2024;46:4–13.

The full collection is available on the IJCP website.

What do we ask?

To be considered for publication, the IJCP and ESCP will first select six leading best practice proposals submitted by end of January 2025. The proposal should be formatted as a 250-word abstract (excluding author details) with the following headings:

•             Author detail (names affiliations, email of corresponding author)

•             Background

•             Aim (of the practice)

•             Setting

•             Development (how the practice was developed)

•             Implementation (how the practice was implemented)

•             Evaluation (how the practice was evaluated; evaluation findings)

•             Conclusion

The top six selected proposals will be given the opportunity to be converted into full manuscripts of 3,000 words maximum. Further information on the format of the full manuscript is available by clicking HERE.

How can you submit?

Submission of manuscripts is made through the ESCP International Office at international.office@escpweb.org

Anyone can submit. You don’t need to be an ESCP member or based in Europe!

Do not forget to submit by 31 January 2025!

The ESCP 2024 Spring Workshop took place at the Faculty of Pharmacy Comenius University Bratislava, Slovakia on 25th – 26th April 2024 on “Pharmacotherapy challenges in the developing years: from conception to adolescence.” “More than 100 clinical pharmacists from all over Europe and beyond got together to share their knowledge, research and network.” The workshop had the patronage of the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic, and the Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy.
Over the two days, there were five plenary sessions as part of the scientific programme.

Angela Lupattelli from the University of Oslo (Norway) talked about the challenges of pharmacotherapy in pregnant and lactating women. These included how risks for drug exposure are perceived in these populations, how observational research is interpreted, and how risks are communicated. Andrea Burch from the University Hospital Zurich (Switzerland) gave us an overview of the significant changes in how drugs are processed by the body during pregnancy and after giving birth. This means keeping a close eye on things and possibly adjusting the dose or the dose interval during pregnancy to keep the desired effect and after the baby is born to avoid any unwanted side effects. Sander Borgsteede from Health Base Foundation (Netherlands) shared the development of recommendations for men who want to have children when they’re on medication that might affect their desire to have children, the actual recommendations and how they’re being put into practice in clinical pharmacy. Erik Puchoň from the National Toxicological Information Centre (Slovakia) shared his insights on the various types of intoxications due to medications, chemicals, and plants. Pharmacists are valuable health care providers who can bring their experience as first-line health care workers in pharmacy as well as be part of hospital care and poison centres teams. Matej Štuhec from the University of Maribor (Slovenia) gave a very enthusiastic talk about non-pharmacological approaches and basic pharmacology and treatment guidelines for ADHD management, as well as presenting clinical cases from his practice. The insights gave the participants a better understanding of how to manage ADHD in clinical practice.

In the four workshops, participants discussed a range of topics: therapeutic drug monitoring in pregnancy and paediatrics (Martina Hahn and Sibylle C. Roll, Germany); searching for information and assessing the risk of pharmacotherapy in pregnancy and breastfeeding (Kateřina Malá Ládová, Czechia and Anna Oleárová, Slovakia); an innovative tool for drug dosing in neonates and paediatrics – PEDeDose (Priska Vonbach, Switzerland); and clinical pharmacy in NICU using the Iatromed tool (Sonia Prot-Labarthe, Sixtine Gilliot and Héloïse Capelle, France).

A nice atmosphere of the workshop was underlined at the Welcome reception in Primate´s Palace (Primaciálny palác). We were welcomed by prof. Ján Klimas, the dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy, and given a private guided tour of the Palace, followed by a tour of the Old Town Bratislava.

A big thank you to all the plenary speakers; workshop moderators; Scientific and Organising Committees of the Spring Workshop; as well as the excellent support of the Faculty of Pharmacy Comenius University Bratislava; to our sponsors (Saladax and DoseMe); and all participants for sharing their knowledge and skills, for sharing their own work by presenting a poster/ oral communication, for networking and for being in Bratislava!
Hope to see you again at one of our future events.

Text: Anna Oleárová; Photos: ©Michal Valentin

Mental Health SIG

Colleagues from the ESCP Special Interest Group Mental Health have prepared a very useful leaflet on Optimizing Patient Care: Administering Psychotropic Medications via Enteral Route.

Psychotropic medication users, including inpatient and outpatient individuals such as geriatrics, nursing home and intensive care unit patients, may require enteral feeding tubes (EFTs) when oral intake is
inadequate or gastrointestinal tract access is limited.
The aim of this leaflet is to provide essential information and valuable resources specifically focused on psychotropics administered via the enteral route.

Specific guidelines for psychotropic medications via the enteral route are currently lacking. Therefore, members of the ESCP Mental Health SIG have compiled a list of commonly used resources where you can find information about different medications.
Simply scan the QR code at the bottom of the leaflet to access these resources. If you know of any helpful resources that you have used in your country, please feel free to share them with us (sig.mentalhealth@escpweb.org). Your contribution will be greatly appreciated.

The European Council for Pharmacy Education Accreditation (ECPhA) was officially launched in mid-November. The ESCP is a founding member of ECPhA, together with the European Association of Hospital Pharmacists (EAHP).

ECPhA’s goal is to support improvements in the quality of continuing education in pharmacy practice in healthcare settings across Europe via accrediting live and online lifelong learning events. ECPhA will work in collaboration with national healthcare professional associations and accrediting bodies.

For more information about ECPhA and the accreditation process, please refer to the ECPhA brochure.

The ECPhA team will soon start the process of approaching national accreditation authorities to discuss potential recognition of ECPhA credits. Thus, we are identifying the contact persons in each country with the goal of asking for a first meeting. If you are in a position to have information regarding who within your country should be contacted, please let the ECPhA team (info@ecpha.eu) know so they can start building a contact database.

In addition, ECPhA is seeking pilot reviewers for the accreditation of the events. Reviewers will ensure that the event complies with ECPhA criteria. It is expected that a reviewer will spend around 3-4 hours per event on a voluntary basis for a maximum of 2 events per year. If interested, please email the ECPhA team (info@ecpha.eu) for further information.

10 October 2023 is World Mental Health Day.

The ESCP Special Interest Group Mental Health has prepared a LEAFLET to be used and shared.

It is our pleasure that prof. Derek Stewart, the ESCP President, gave interviews to Dr. Christine Clark from www.pharmacyupdate.online. Click to read, watch & listen:

1. Why join the European Society for Clinical Pharmacy?
2. How ESCP special interest groups forge worldwide links
3. Building best practice in clinical pharmacy
4. How the Oath to Society underpins clinical pharmacy practice
5. What are ESCP developments and aspirations?

Update from the General Committee (by Derek Stewart)

The General Committee is the ESCP leadership body and is responsible for driving the strategy of the society. We now have a vacancy for a position on the General committee. All non-student members will have received an email about this opportunity to make a major impact on ESCP and clinical pharmacy at the global level. Please consider this carefully and submit an application. The deadline is 01 September 2023.

We are delighted that to announce that we have recently signed a collaborative agreement with Polish Society of Clinical Pharmacy, with benefits for both societies. The number of national agreements is increasing; if you are involved with your national clinical pharmacy society and would like to explore partnership, then please get in touch. We continue to progress the establishment of the European Council for Pharmacy Education Accreditation (ECPhA) and will provide updates in future newsletters.

Update from the Education Committee (by Kateřina Malá Ládová)

In Summer 2023, EdCom welcomed a new member from Germany representing ESCP General Commitee. Dr. Martina Hahn will support working of EdCom and connect the visions of GC into EdCom.

The EdCom strategic plan for 2023 is ongoing, especially autumn webinars organized by EdCom are coming. In September, the webinar will be focused on increase awareness for pharmacy professionals on public health disasters and emergencies.

In October, the webinar will be held on behalf of EdCom and is hosting an expert panel discussion focused on:

1) Experiential learning – its integration into the undergraduate curriculum, and strategies to support and optimize its impact;

2) Continuing Professional Development – analysis of the current challenges and opportunities regarding access, implementation and evaluation.

Update from the Special Interest Group (SIG) Council (by Bart Pouls)

In the background ESCP is are working on communication within SIGs to facilitate the sharing and building of ideas on clinical pharmacy. During the conference in Aberdeen, all three SIGs will showcase themselves and have a slot within the program where you can hear what’s happening and become a member too!

Please click here for more information.