Health experts meet to validate Pharmaceutical care and Practice
Stakeholders in the health sector have converged in Accra to validate a uniform policy document, aimed at harmonising standards of pharmaceutical care and practice in the country.
The purpose of these standards among other things is to secure utmost safety of patients as well as prevent, detect and report adverse medicine reaction and provide counseling to patients on drug use.
Speaking at the review meeting of standards for pharmaceutical care in Accra, Dr Afizah Zakariah, Chief Director, Ministry of Health (MOH) in speech read on her behalf, said one of the conscious effort of pharmaceutical industry is to harmonise their activities especially in the development and dissemination of standards for pharmaceutical care and its operating procedures.
According to Dr Zakariah the purpose of the document has been to define the roles, activities and responsibilities in providing standardise pharmaceutical care in all health care institutions in Ghana.
Dr Zakariah said currently, the document had been reviewed to include areas such as medication error reporting, governance and leadership roles in accordance with trends and changes in the pharmaceutical sector.
“It is my hope that the review documents would capture and reflect the current trends and international best practices in pharmaceutical care so as to ensure improved quality health and vitality for the good of this country.’’
Dr Zakariah said the Ministry and its agencies would do their best to mobilise resources to see to the efficient implementation of standards in order to realize the goals and objectives.
Mrs Angela A. Ackon, Deputy Director of Pharmaceutical Services, MOH recalled that review of the Standards for Pharmaceutical Care (SPC) and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) in the health sector was done in 2002 and 2005 respectively.
Mrs Ackon said the review process aimed at harmonising SOP and SPC and indicated that the proposed name of the document would be: “Standard and Practice Guide for Pharmaceutical Care.”
According to her when the document was validated, it would act as a guide in operational research, clinical trials and audits as well as ensure safe and secure handling of medicines in terms procurement, preparation, dispensing and storage of medicines.
Additionally, she said it would evaluate medicines use and prescription monitoring and manage the cost of pharmaceuticals and promote the sustainability of the National Health Insurance Scheme since medicines form more than 50 per cent of total medicines cost to the scheme.
In attendance were officials from the Ghana Standard Authority, Food and Drugs Authority, Ghana Health Services, Teaching Hospitals and Christian Health Association of Ghana and the Ministry of Health.
Source: GNA