Patients and professionals agree on the future of hospital pharmacy

A robust set of hospital pharmacy practice standards for Europe has been agreed at an international Summit in Brussels. These standards should be met across European health systems to ensure safe, effective and optimal use of medicines in collaboration with multidisciplinary teams. The standards, comprising 44 statements of practice, were agreed at the European Summit on Hospital Pharmacy which concluded on Thursday 15th May, and was attended by more than 100 persons.

The statements were subject to open Delphi consultation with national hospital pharmacy associations, European patient groups, doctors and nursing organisations. The organisations then gave their final joint approval to each statement individually by a weighted voting method at the Summit event.

The European Statements of Hospital Pharmacy include:

• All hospitals should have access to a hospital pharmacist who has overall responsibility for the safe, effective and …