COVID-19 has highlighted the "critical value" the pharmacy workforce around the world provides health systems, International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) Global Pharmaceutical Observatory Director, Dr Ian Bates, believes.
Launching the FIP Workforce Reference Guide on Wed, Bates stressed the importance of the pharmacy workforce to global healthcare.
"There is no healthcare without a workforce," he said.
"We are chronically short of healthcare workers worldwide...and this is in the context of increasing complexity of medicines, increasing comorbidities, people living longer with more diseases and taking more medicines.
"We [pharmacists] have never been more important and critical for global health, and in particular primary health care, than we are right now.
"[The pandemic] has highlighted the critical value and impact that pharmacists have."
Bates said the new reference guide provides a "starting point" for member organisations to use to support workforce transformation over the next five to 10 years.
Also speaking at the launch of the guide, FIP Workforce Development Hub Global Lead, Dr Barbel Holbein, noted the COVID pandemic had significantly accelerated the transformation of the profession and the services delivered by pharmacists.
"COVID-19 broke out and immediately the pharmacy profession face changes with respect to workforce, information and education delivery," she said.
"Our group strongly believe that we must take advantage of these times now and shape the future of our profession."
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