Prof. Derek Stewart was nominated for the ESCP Fellow due to his outstanding contributions to clinical pharmacy research, practice, and education. He is a globally recognized leader with a remarkable track record, having secured over £3 million in research funding and published more than 280 peer-reviewed papers. His leadership as Chief Editor of the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy has enhanced the journal’s impact and diversity.
Derek’s research has had a direct, positive influence on clinical pharmacy, including the expansion of pharmacist prescribing in the UK and improving patient safety in the Middle East. He has also mentored over 30 PhD students, strengthening research capacity within the field. His long-standing service to the ESCP, including his presidency from 2020-2023, exemplifies his dedication to advancing the Society’s mission. His efforts led to expanded membership, increased collaboration with other societies, and successful annual events, all while fostering an inclusive and innovative environment.
Derek’s leadership, research excellence, and unwavering commitment to the ESCP make him a highly deserving ESCP Fellow. Professor Stewart was presented with the award during the opening ceremony of the ESCP Symposium in Krakow.
The ESCP 2024 Annual Symposium took place in Krakow, Poland, from October 21st to 23rd, 2024, with the theme “Implementing and Scaling Sustainable Clinical Pharmacy Practice.” The event gathered over 350 participants from Europe and beyond, fostering the exchange of knowledge, research, and professional networking. The scientific program featured plenary sessions, workshops, oral communications, poster presentations, and sponsored lectures.
The day before the symposium, a General Committee meeting was held, along with a Masterclass of Excellence organized by the Research Committee and led by Prof. Martin Henman and Prof. Betul Okuyan. The masterclass focused on initiating implementation science in clinical pharmacy. The evening before the symposium featured the opening lecture by Prof. Piotr Skarżyński, who presented the fascinating topic “Methods of Treatment in Partial Deafness: From Pharmacology to Implants.” The evening concluded with a Welcome Reception held in the historic Jagiellonian University building.
The symposium was officially opened by Dr. Monika Lutters (President of ESCP), Dr. Kamila Urbanczyk (Symposium President), and Prof. Michael Scott (Scientific Committee Chair). During the opening, Prof. Martina Hahn presented an award to Prof. Derek Stewart as a new ESCP Fellow.
The symposium centered on the transformation process, emphasizing the latter stages – implementing, scaling, spreading, and achieving the sustainability of innovations in clinical practice – all supported by new models of education and lifelong learning.
Prof. Cathy Harrison described the implementation of innovative clinical pharmacy services across Northern Ireland’s health system from a policy perspective. Prof. Judith Strawbridge discussed the benefits of involving patients in research and how their insights and life experiences lead to more relevant research with improved outcomes. Dr. Alpana Mair shared the outcomes of the EU-funded SIMPATHY project, which identified recommendations for managing polypharmacy in Europe, building on Scotland’s program to address inappropriate prescribing and prevent medication-related harm.
Dr. Francesca Wirth reflected on how practice research outcomes could support the evolution of effective and sustainable pharmacy services, focusing on cardiovascular disease management. She also discussed strategies to overcome barriers and enhance facilitators, along with practical considerations. Dr. Charlotte Bekker introduced a Dutch project exploring the potential to “reuse” unused medications from patients’ homes. Dr. Markus Lampert and Prof. Samuel Allemann shared Swiss experiences on developing and implementing a pharmacist-led pharmacogenetic service in various settings. Prof. Michael Scott and Anita Hogg introduced the Medicines Optimisation Innovation Centre (MOIC), a Northern Ireland-based center of expertise that has demonstrated considerable success and sustainability since 2015.
Other plenary sessions, led by internationally renowned speakers, addressed topics such as the aging population (Prof. Daniela Fialová), cardiovascular and respiratory diseases (Prof. Piotr Ponikowski and Prof. Joanna Chorostowska-Wynimko), mental health (Prof. Anita Weidmann), and antimicrobial resistance (Dr. Marina Odalović).
The Steve Hudson Lecture was delivered by Prof. Bart van den Bemt, who spoke on implementing sustainable clinical pharmacy practices with the principles of reduce, reuse, and recycle.
Two lectures sponsored by Saladax featured exceptional speakers. Dr. Georgios Schoretsanitis discussed the fundamentals and role of therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) in clinical decision-making, while Prof. Martina Hahn and Prof. Sibylle Roll emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration in interpreting TDM results to optimize drug safety in antipsychotic therapy.
During the 15 workshops, participants focused on diverse topics, including medication optimization in frailty, medicines reviews, clinical pharmacy services for polypharmacy patients, patient engagement, clinical pharmacy practice and research methodology, clinical supervision for students and trainees, antimicrobial stewardship, sick-day guidance in clinical practice, and health literacy for pharmacists and educators. All workshops were facilitated by experienced moderators, resulting in active discussions.
During the breaks, participants had the opportunity to view the poster session, discuss with the authors and network.
The symposium highlighted that achieving impactful results in clinical pharmacy for patient benefit requires a holistic approach, involving collaboration among all stakeholders – spanning education, clinical pharmacy care delivery, interdisciplinary collaboration, legislative support, continuous evaluation, and long-term sustainability.
The event’s ambiance was highlighted by the gala dinner held under the Kościuszko Mound. The DoubleTree Hilton venue provided a delightful setting, complemented by high-quality catering. Attendees also had the chance to participate in a Fun Run or tour Krakow’s Old Town, all against the backdrop of beautiful autumn weather.
A sincere thank you to all plenary speakers, workshop moderators, the Scientific and Organizing Committees of the symposium, the ESCP International Office, the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, the City of Kraków, our sponsors (Saladax, DoseMe, and Datlowe), and all participants for sharing their knowledge, skills, and work through posters, oral communications, and networking.
We look forward to seeing you again at one of our future events!
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.
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.
The next special issue of IJCP is on the theme of “Artificial intelligence based solutions and innovative technologies in clinical pharmacy practice and research”.
Guest editors
– Prof. Kreshnik Hoti, Faculty of Medicine, Division of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmacy Practice and Pharmaceutical Care, University of Pristina, Prishtina, Kosovo.
– Prof. Anita Elaine Weidmann, Head of Clinical Pharmacy Dept. at Innsbruck University; Associate Editor of the IJCP and ESCP Research Committee member.
This theme is both timely and relevant considering rapid developments in the area of AI and potential impact on clinical pharmacy practice and research. Submissions should be aligned to the broad field of clinical pharmacy practice, in relation to AI and related Innovative Technologies, and within the scope of the journal.
Deadline for manuscript submission: 31 January 2025.
Delighted that the 2023 Clarivate impact factor for the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy has just been released and is 2.6! This is an increase from 2.4 in 2022 and means that the impact factor has increased every year since 2020. IJCP IS NOW IN QUARTILE 2 of Pharmacology and Pharmacy. This is a major achievement, moving from Q4 to Q2 in 2 years in one of the largest categories in Clarivate.
Professor Derek Stewart, IJCP Editor-in-Chief and immediate past President of ESCP said, “I am indebted to the associate editors, board members, reviewers, authors and those citing us! While we strive to publish quality, impactful papers, the impact factor remains an important metric.”
Remember that ESCP is affiliated with IJCP. All abstracts presented at our workshops and symposia are published in IJCP.
All ESCP members have free access to all journal issues, via the member login pages.
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.
There is also an excellent commentary from the ESCP Research Committee, ‘Writing a manuscript for publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal: Guidance from the European Society of Clinical Pharmacy’, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11096-023-01695-6 This can also be found under the ‘Guidelines and Tools’ section of the members’ only section on the ESCP website.
ESCP is affiliated with the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy (IJCP), with all abstracts from our workshops and symposia published in the journal.
ESCP has been working on a new concept: the ESCP Close to You events. These 1-day events are meant to be physically organized on a regional level and on a regional/national knowledge level. In this way, we will be able to provide education and transfer knowledge that is precisely fitting to the national needs. Of course, the formula of the event will be adapted according to needs or experience.
The concept of these events is that participants will arrive on the event day or the evening before, and return home in the evening after the event. Where applicable, accreditation will be organized.
We are proud to announce the first ESCP ‘close to you’ activity on: Monday the 25th of March from 13:30 to 17:30 in the Sint Maartenskliniek in Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Renowned speakers from across Europe will be sharing examples on how to shape the future of pharmacy chaired by our past-president professor Bart van den Bemt. See the flyer for further details. As simple as ABC, so don’t miss out if it is close to you!
This includes a great paper from members of ESCP committees, ‘Scope, content and quality of clinical pharmacy practice guidelines: a systematic review’, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11096-023-01658-x This is a key paper for all interested in clinical pharmacy practice, research and education.
All ESCP Best Practice Papers are now housed in a collection on the IJCP website https://link.springer.com/collections/febadhfjbg and are available on the members only section of the ESCP website
ESCP is affiliated with the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy (IJCP), with all abstracts from our workshops and symposia published in the journal.
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.
ESCP is affiliated with the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy (IJCP), with all abstracts from our workshops and symposia published in the journal.
With guest editors Filipa Alves da Costa, Matej Stuhec and Martina Hahn, the issue has 32 articles relevant for all practitioners, researchers, educators and students. Mental health covers a wide range of conditions, including depression, anxiety, psychosis, opioid dependence, dementia, to name a few. This means that the specific papers covered in this special issue are also diverse, and our authors have contributed opinion pieces, review articles and research-based papers that cover many of these topics.
ESCP is affiliated with the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy (IJCP), with all abstracts from our workshops and symposia published in the journal.
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:
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!
