The overarching goal of the hospital pharmacy service is to optimise patient outcomes through working collaboratively within multidisciplinary teams in order to achieve the responsible use of medicines across all settings.

With an excellent score of 93.6% of the maximum possible agreement level, participants at the European Summit on Hospital Pharmacy in Brussels approved this first statement leading our profession into 2020 and beyond. The statements are concise sentences setting out tasks and a vision of the skills and competencies we should develop and maintain.

Translating the overarching first statement into practice is not easy: ‘optimise’ means excellence should never lead to complacency and that under-developed practice must move step by step towards excellence. Inertia and frustration at a lack of resources are not an option. Creativity is required and we should enjoy each small step aimed at improving the outcome of our patients.

Achieving the best outcome for patients is not restricted to pharmacists: the statements are the result of a robust Delphi process where patients, physicians and nurses helped us understand their needs and adapt our practice goals to the entire process.

‘Working collaboratively with multidisciplinary teams’ is a challenge and an opportunity at the same time; a challenge as we have to develop social competency in dialogue with other healthcare professionals and patients, and an opportunity as our skills will be recognised by patients and professionals as we interact with them and take responsibility for our advice. The unknown pharmacist in his pharmacy is not the future of our profession.

‘Responsible use of medicines’ refers to a carefully balanced decision between effectiveness, medication safety, the patient's needs and wishes, as well as financial cost. This is not an easy task especially in times of austerity if the requests of patients do not accord with economic constraints. ‘Responsible’ …