Pharmacy Practice

About this book

• Supports integrated pharmacy education, so that students are learning in a professionally relevant context from day one.
• Focuses on the fundamental ideas that first year students need to fully grasp before progressing with more advanced study.
• Material clearly demonstrates connections between scientific concepts and principles and how they are applied to pharmacy.
• Written by subject experts and edited by academics with a wealth of teaching experience.

Taking medication is a common occurrence for many people, whether it is to soothe an aching head, regulate blood sugars, or to treat life threatening conditions, such as HIV or cancer. In the UK alone, over 900 million prescriptions are dispensed every year. Overseeing all of this are pharmacists: experts in medicines and their use.

The Integrated Foundations of Pharmacy series supports those who are at the beginning of their journey to become a pharmacist. The reader will begin to understand how a drug molecule is made; the process that turns it into a medicine; the role the pharmacist has when dispensing that medicine; and what happens in the body when it is taken. Most importantly, the series shows how each of these aspects are integrated, reflecting the most up-to-date teaching practices.

Pharmacy Practice examines what it means to be part of such an established profession and how this role has developed over time. While dispensing medicine remains a vital part of the job, the book illustrates how pharmacists have an ever-increasing role to play in providing health care, be it prescribing medicine themselves or providing public health advice.

Online Resource Centre
The Online Resource Centre to accompany Pharmacy Practice features:

For registered adopters of the book:
- Figures from the book, available to download.

For students:
- Self-assessment questions to help the reader to check and reinforce understanding of the material introduced in each chapter.
Readership: The Integrated Foundations of Pharmacy series is suitable for pharmacy undergraduates studying introductory courses in pharmaceutical chemistry, therapeutics and human physiology, pharmaceutics, and pharmacy practice.

Reviews

"I have been looking for this book for a long time, as all important issues in pharmacy practice are put into one place. This makes it easier for students, pharmacists and academics to grasp the basic concepts of pharmacy practice and its integration with other pharmacy-related disciplines. The book is student-friendly and well written using simple language with some pharmacy and healthcare terminology. Even though it is aimed at first-year pharmacy students, I have found it very useful for my MPharm course at all levels (Levels 1-4) and MSc pharmacy programmes. Most importantly, the content and relevant learning objectives correspond well to the learning outcomes and indicative syllabus set out by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC)." - Win Winit-Watjana, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sunderland

Table of contents

1: The profession and practice of pharmacy
1.1What do pharmacists do?
1.2Historical development of the health professions
1.3Attributes of the professions and benefits of being a professional
1.4Becoming a health professional
1.5How is pharmacy regulated and supported?

2: Organisation of healthcare in the UK
2.1The creation of the NHS and its impact on service provision
2.2Healthcare provision
2.3The structure of the NHS
2.4Clinical governance

3: Legal and ethical matters
3.1The law and legal systems in the United Kingdom
3.2Criminal law
3.3Civil law
3.4The UK courts
3.5Courts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland that deal with criminal cases
3.6The criminal courts in Scotland
3.7Criminal penalties (sentencing)
3.8Pharmacists with criminal convictions
3.9Civil courts in England and Wales and in Northern Ireland
3.10Civil Courts in Scotland
3.11Ethics
3.12Outline of UK legislation relating to medicines for human use
3.13Fitness to practise and the GPhC (Great Britain)
3.14Veterinary medicines

4: Public health
4.1What is health?
4.2Measuring health - epidemiology
4.3What is public health?
4.4Public health through the ages
4.5'Contemporary' public health policy and practice
4.6The development of pharmacy's public health function
4.7Pharmacy's current public health function
4.8Future health challenges and barriers to effective public health measures

5: Prescribing and dispensing
5.1The journey of a patient from prescriber to medicine
5.2Who can prescribe?
5.3What factors need to be considered when prescribing a prescription for a patient?
5.4Chronic or long term prescribing
5.5Ethical perspectives of prescribing
5.6Economic perspectives of prescribing
5.7Factors to be considered when dispensing a prescription for a patient
5.8Preparing the medicine
5.9Accuracy checking of the dispensed item
5.10Giving the medication to the patient

6: Interaction with other healthcare professionals and patients
6.1The interprofessional team
6.2Health and social care professionals, their roles and responsibilities
6.3What is interprofessional education?
6.4UK initiatives in IPE
6.5Is IPE effective?
6.6What is interprofessional working?
6.7Communication with patients: the development of the art of consultation skills
6.8Discussion of concordance and adherence from the patient perspective

7: Behavioural and social sciences
7.1What are the behavioural and social sciences?
7.2Definitions of health & and illness
7.3What is health psychology?
7.4Models of health behaviour and their contribution to healthcare
7.5Measuring health and health inequalities
7.6Illness behaviour and the rights and obligations of patients and healthcare professionals
7.7Behavioural and social sciences and their contribution to pharmacy practice research

8: Pharmaceutical care
8.1Which medication is most appropriate?
8.2Pharmaceutical care
8.3Medication review in practice
8.4The future