Last month, I shared what I described as a defining moment for community pharmacy: agreement on a revised HRT arrangement and, more importantly, our formal entry into a structured Framework of Engagement with the Department of Health and the HSE. This milestone marked the beginning of a new chapter for our profession, grounded in a shared commitment to reform, investment and collaboration. One month in, I want to provide members with an update on the IPU’s advocacy efforts, and the ongoing work to move from broad commitments to practical progress. It is important to emphasise that this remains a live and evolving process, not a done deal, and we are working to ensure that this Framework delivers real, tangible outcomes for community pharmacists across the country.  

Weekly engagement with DoH and HSE

We are continuing to meet weekly with senior officials from both the Department and the HSE as part of a focused and confidential negotiation process. The nature of this engagement means that the specifics must remain confidential for now. However, I want to reassure you that the IPU team, comprising elected committee members and dedicated staff, is fully engaged and resourced to support this work. It may seem quiet from the outside, but behind the scenes we have been anything but. At the negotiation table your views, priorities, and professional realities are being clearly and firmly represented. Our focus remains on securing the recognition, resourcing, and reform that our sector urgently needs.  

‘Dispensing and Core Funding’

While the Framework process remains our top priority, other important strands of work are progressing in parallel. At the end of April, I had the honour of representing the IPU at the annual conference of the World Pharmacy Council — whilst we often feel isolated as a profession in Ireland, the commonality of issues globally impacting pharmacy is startling. One of the key outputs from this conference is a joint position statement on Dispensing and Core Funding, a document that will be instrumental in shaping our advocacy efforts in the weeks ahead. This position statement defines dispensing as a clinical service, one that is integral to patient safety, personalised care, and medication optimisation. It presents robust international evidence demonstrating the frequency and value of pharmacist-led interventions during the dispensing process. Crucially, it calls for sustainable core funding to safeguard this essential healthcare function, emphasising its critical role in access, continuity, and resilience. It outlines five key elements required in funding models to ensure viability, responsiveness, equity, and efficiency in healthcare delivery. As an advocacy tool, it offers compelling, evidence-backed case for recognising and resourcing dispensing as a cornerstone of modern healthcare systems. For too long, policymakers have incorrectly assumed that our core role has economies of scale —his is simply not the case. Community pharmacy is a service-based, quality-driven profession, additional volume brings not savings, but additional costs. This reality was echoed in a recent report, Economic analysis of NHS Pharmaceutical Services in England, commissioned by NHS England as part of their contract negotiations with the pharmacy sector.  The key points from this report that are applicable to community pharmacy in Ireland are as follows:

• “Econometric analysis does not suggest any economies of scale at the level of individual pharmacies”;
• Pharmacy costs were driven by a range of factors/variables including location, level of rurality, staff experience and availability, quality of service delivery, patient mix and demographics, extent of local GP provision, historical timing of investment, difference in opening hours, the range of services and variations in efficiencies within in the pharmacy (in other words it is complex with multifactorial variables);
• “The pharmacy sector is relatively unique across the economy, which has implications for its underlying risk profile. In particular, the sector relies extensively on a single purchaser (NHS) which has power to set prices. This introduces a specific set of risks for contractors and potential investors”; and
• “Small companies have higher rates of inherent risk”.

 

Digital innovation and advancement

Other areas for discussion at the conference included digitalisation and AI, which are no longer seen as optional, but essential for the survival and evolution of community pharmacy. Patient expectations are rapidly shifting toward speed, accessibility, and convenience. From digitalised workflows and AI-powered medication management to virtual assistants and personalised patient information, technology, when utilised correctly, can and should release pharmacists’ time for more meaningful clinical engagement. However, the discussions at the conference also made clear that this must be approached with caution. AI must support, not override, the autonomy and clinical judgment of pharmacists. It cannot replace the human-to-human interaction, and the trust provided within the healthcare setting. There are also great concerns about the ethical usage of AI in practice and a strong view that the ethical questions need to be addressed with a level of urgency to direct the integration of AI into our practice. We need to think very carefully about what we are asking AI to solve before AI is developed to fulfil roles not required, and miss opportunities where it would be of benefit. The theme of digital innovation and advancement was prominent, and robust cybersecurity underpinned all the conversations. As you will have seen in last month’s edition, this is an area that the IPU is actively prioritising ahead of national eHealth developments. As Ireland prepares for ePrescribing and the wider sharing of national health records, pharmacies must not become weak links in system security. It is essential that robust national infrastructure development is supported through government initiatives for implementation in pharmacy and funded appropriately. There is an onus on national systems to be robust enough to withstand a cyber-attack at pharmacy level and individual pharmacies cannot become neither the target of, nor the scapegoat for, such attacks in the future.  

Building a resilient pharmacy workforce

Workforce challenges were a recurring theme; Ireland shares global issues of recruitment, retention, and professional burnout. Emphasising the clinical value of dispensing, expanding technicians’ roles, and improving student placements, are essential to positioning community pharmacy as a valued, modern healthcare career. This was also an area of focus at the recent PGEU conference held in Dublin, the title of the programme for which was ‘Building a Resilient Pharmacy Workforce for the Future’, and I would encourage you to read the article on this conference contained within this month’s IPU Review (see page XXX). A key take home message from my attendance at these two conferences was this: effective advocacy must begin with solving government problems, not simply presenting our own problems, however real and important those may be.

Pharmacy is the solution to many challenges

For community pharmacy to thrive, we must position ourselves as part of the solution to broader system pressures — a ready, regulated, accessible healthcare provider. We have the reach, the trust, and the professional capability to relieve pressure across the health system, but we must continue to demonstrate that value proactively. If we do not adapt, others will fill the space. The future of Irish community pharmacy lies in balancing trusted clinical care with innovation, and ensuring our voice shapes, rather than reacts to, healthcare transformation. Also featured in this month’s issue are the latest B&A survey results, which shows the strong trust the public have in community pharmacists. The findings reinforce both the value of our expanded role, and our unique accessibility with now over 117 million visits to community pharmacy every year. This month’s IPU Review also includes an interesting article on the Pharmacy First programme in Northern Ireland, which is a must read for Irish community pharmacists, as we start to prepare for the Common Conditions Service, with a strong expectation that we will be in a position to begin this service in 2025 when the correct enablers are in place. As we continue to navigate this pivotal moment for our profession, our strength lies in our unity. Your trust and collective voice empowers us at the negotiation table. While the detail of the Framework process must remain confidential, I want to assure you that the work is active, strategic, and wholly focused on securing the outcomes our sector needs. We will keep you informed as progress unfolds and we remain firmly committed to delivering a future where community pharmacy is valued, sustainable, and central to patient care in Ireland and provides a clear vision for the future of our profession.