Joan Peppard’s involvement in EAHP

Following the years when Joan represented Irish colleagues (Hospital Pharmacists Association Ireland, HPAI) as the delegate to the General Assembly, she was elected to the EAHP Board of Directors at the 2012 General Assembly in Budapest. Joan quickly adapted to the new position and widely contributed to the work of the EAHP Board of Directors, developing their professional policies and internal matters. She was elected to the position of President-elect in 2014 at the General Assembly in Sofia. In that role Joan worked on creating the strategy of the European Statements of Hospital Pharmacy implementation as well as preparation of project planning for establishing the Common Training Framework (CTF).

Leadership

During the period of her presidency, Joan focused on effective leadership of the Board. This was an important step, as the number of EAHP agendas quickly grew. Joan came up with the model of shared leadership, where all the policy and internal agendas of the Board are led by one of the Board members with co-leadership by the other Board member. This model has proven to be very efficient and contributed also to the smooth transition of the duties between past and present Board members.

Another significant progress achieved under Joan’s presidency was the development and broadening of our partnerships with other European and global pharmacy organisations, healthcare and patient associations. These efforts helped significantly in our attempts to bring a wider knowledge about, and acknowledgement of, hospital pharmacists’ contribution to patients and healthcare systems, and also led to numerous endorsements of the Statements.

Joan also represented hospital pharmacy in the committees of the important stakeholders, such as the European Medicines Agency. The success of this representation shows by the increasing number of consultations to which we are asked to contribute. It is a significant amount of work, but first of all a great opportunity for the voice of the hospital pharmacists to be heard.

Common training framework

A project of a mutually recognised hospital pharmacy postgraduate education has been resonating within EAHP for more than 40 years. Due to the changes in the legal text of the EU Professional Qualifications Directive, it became more concrete after 2013. Much work has been done since then and most of it under Joan’s Presidency. The development of the qualification framework has been finished, the proper communication and project strategies leading to, hopefully, successful application were continuously developed. A significant part of the communication strategy was also fulfilled thanks to Joan’s high commitment and numerous presentations of the importance and opportunities contained in the CTF during many meetings, national and international congresses.

On a personal note, Joan and I joined the Board the same year and I will always be grateful for the opportunity to learn from her, to see the effective way of leadership, and passion for our patients and hospital pharmacy, the friendly, focused and even insistent, when necessary, management of EAHP matters. Therefore, I am very pleased that Joan agreed to continue serving with the EAHP Board of Directors in her new role as Immediate Past President and advisor to the Board. Having the chance to see her continued high work pace, I am sure that EAHP will very much benefit from this decision and her experience.