Governments should ensure that access to medicines and medical devices is always accompanied by access to pharmacists and pharmaceutical expertise, the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) said in a statement of policy, published recently.
With this statement, FIP makes a number of recommendations for how different groups of stakeholders can improve access to safe and quality essential medicines. For example, policy-makers should make legislative changes to enable pharmacists to provide substitutes when a prescribed medicine is not available.
In particular, the policy highlights a significant difference in medicines access between low- and high-income countries, with disparities in the structure of healthcare systems and the numbers and roles of pharmacists and pharmacies being among the contributing causes. “In terms of healthcare infrastructure, governments should strive for national health policies that ensure universal health coverage. They should also guarantee that the security of supply of medicines is central to every law ensuring access to medicines — even in the event of public health emergencies — and establish robust recall systems,” said Mr Lars-Åke Söderlund, FIP’s vice president and co-chair of the FIP committee on access to medicines.
Among the recommendations to pharmacists is that they take a leadership role in advocating medicines safety, and that they involve themselves with processes that support equitable access to medicines, including working with governments to develop policies supporting underserved populations.
“Our recommendations to address the disparities include that the pharmaceutical industry should support local production of medicines and medical devices in low- and middle-income countries through technology transfer, sharing of intellectual property, training and investment in facilities. It should also improve transparency regarding pricing structures and costs within pharmaceutical markets for governments, policymakers, health professionals and the public, and give focus to fair pricing,” Mr Söderlund added.
FIP itself makes a number of commitments in the statement, including to advocate for a regulatory and policy framework that enables pharmacists to exercise their professional competence to increase access to medicines and medical devices. The Federation also commits to support competency development programmes targeting pharmacists’ roles in mitigating the impact of medicines shortages in industry, hospital, healthcare facility and community settings.
