ICCPE Spring Programme 2005

This spring, ICCPE training will include a number of courses dedicated to promoting equitable access to pharmacy services for all people. Special populations such as people with disabilities, people with literacy problems and learning difficulties, children and the elderly will all feature prominently in this spring's extensive range of learning opportunities.

"A key function of the community pharmacist is to respond to the needs of individual patients, helping them to understand how, when and why to take their medicines," says ICCPE Director Orla Sheehan. "This is the case, regardless of the age of patients, their physical abilities and their capacity to read or to learn in traditional ways," she says. "This spring, ICCPE hopes to give pharmacists an insight into the considerations involved in dealing effectively and empathetically with a number of special populations," says Ms. Sheehan.

The Roadshow for this term is Medicines for Children, which will travel to twenty-six venues nationwide. Participants on the courses will receive free copies of the authoritive references for prescribing, dispensing and administering medicines to children, Medicines for Children and Pocket Medicines for Children.

ICCPE has teamed up with IPU and the Equality Authority to offer a course entitled Pharmabilities. Presented by Maureen Gilbert, Disability Advisor to the Equality Authority, this course will introduce pharmacists and their staff to the concepts involved in dealing with people with all kinds of impairments. This will enable them to assess just how 'able' their pharmacies are.

Health Literacy, presented in conjunction with NALA - The National Adult Literacy Agency - will equip pharmacists with an insight into the issues involved in communicating effectively with people with literacy problems or specific learning disorders. There are over five hundred thousand such people living in Ireland today, a considerable percentage of the patients attending at any pharmacy.

Like children, the elderly are a special population for whom effective medicines management is particularly important. Preventing Falls in the Elderly will deal with the high incidence of iatrogenic falls in people over sixty-five, structured care plans for the prevention and management of osteoporosis and the positive effects that the rationalisation of prescribing can have for preventing falls.

Taking time out in the coming months for instruction on the issues involved in providing for these and other special populations will be of benefit to pharmacists and patients alike. "In order to attend to the lifelong health needs of their patients, pharmacists must attend to their lifelong learning needs first," says Orla Sheehan.