Since
interviews are around the corner (some already past, some tomorrow) I thought I
would put together a few summaries, hints and tips that I compiled through my
own interview prep. As you've probably guessed I passed the London
Collaboration assessment along with half the world and now need to prepare for
the interview. For about a week I was struggling to figure out what on earth I
was expected to do in preparation and below I have listed some pretty
important/ good documents to read before your interview.
Note: this
list isn't by any means exhaustive so read, read, read whatever you can find.
The more reading the better!
The Five Year Forward View (October 2014):
This I didn't actually read because these documents are long and
complex and who has time, really?! So here's an amazing video summarising the
whole thing that you can watch on your way to work, uni...wherever. Yes it's
over 20mins long but no pain no gain right?
5 year forward view
Delivering The Forward View (December
2015):
This one I actually tried to read and I struggled but luckily
I've summarised what I found below so you don't have to.
• Delivering the forward view was
designed to implement the five year forward plan and upholds the 'mandate to
NHS England', a settlement between the government and the NHS.
• The document is split into 2
plans. The first is a five year Sustainability and Transformation Plan (STP), the video for which is below.
This part covers from October 2016 to March 2021 and will be formally assessed
in July 2016. This is the main part of the reform and will be planned by the
individual institutions.
• It will be the first NHS planning
process with significant central money (part of the £560 billion NHS fund for
this process) and will be the 'single application and approval process for
being accepted onto transformational programmes' from 2017/18 onwards.
• Nonetheless this money must be
allocated with care as each trust must have a good end-of-year financial
outturn in order for the plans to work well. This is a big aspect of the plans
as financial balance is an important factor in any system, especially the NHS.
This will mean focus on areas such as emergency care which are known to be a problem
in terms of waiting times and costs already. Prevention is also key along with
care redesign all of which are areas pharmacists could be the solution for.
• The other phase of this process
describes the Operational Plan for 2016/17. This is a one year process and,
from my understanding, aids the changes implemented whilst working side by side
with the emerging STP. This one will be specific for each trust /CCG. This part
really confused me but I think it manages the commissioning of services to
providers and the management of finances and quality of services. This was
actually a major issue highlighted in an article in the PJ where the NHS was
called to become more transparent with finances in this department and it was
thought to be wasting a lot of money (If I find the link I'll post it below).
I'm not going to waffle to much because, to be honest, I'm still
trying to get my head round the whole thing. But here's the link to a document
by PSNC, summarising the effect of these changes on pharmacy. It focuses mainly
on community pharmacy in the document but this can easily be used to understand
what it would mean for hospital pharmacy.
Other Documents:
In addition to these two documents there are a number of other documents that you would need to have a vague knowledge off. These include the Francis report and the Carter report, one of which actually came up in the assessments. There are summaries for everything online so this shouldn't take up too much time.
What Else:
Additionally you would
need to be up to date with pharmacy news. The Pharmaceutical Journal is an
ocean of knowledge in this department so make sure you read it! There are 3
articles I found quite interesting which I have shared below. One describes the
low rate of detected ADRs in under two's, another is pharmacist-led
anticoagulant clinics (which helps alleviate some of the stress on the NHS),
opioid dependence and talks of a seven day hospital pharmacy service.
Adverse drug reactions underreported in children aged under two years
Assessing the impact of a targeted pharmacist-led anticoagulant review clinic
The measurement and treatment of pain needs to be reassessed
NHS England sets out recommendations for seven-day hospital pharmacy services
This should be enough for now, I think.
Make sure to prepare the regular, why hospital pharmacy?.. Tell us a bit about yourself.. questions as well. There's also plenty more tips on Pharmalife and on online forums, so use those too!
Good Luck & Happy Reading!
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