The Health, Social Care and Sport Committee has published its final report on healthcare in remote and rural areas.

Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) provided both written and oral evidence to this inquiry, and RPS is pleased to read our evidence highlighted in the final report.

In a wide-ranging evidence session, Laura Wilson, Director for Scotland noted the challenges of ensuring pharmacists working in remote and rural areas had the same opportunities to access training as colleagues in more densely populated areas and was asked by the Committee if better use could be made of existing initiatives to support local skills development and training.  Her answer to this is highlighted in the Committee’s report:

“We would support any training that can be done more locally, that does not take pharmacists away from their practice for longer than is necessary and that allows them to build up skills.

Also, the pool of senior pharmacists who can provide peer review and support is far more diluted in remote and rural areas.

It would be more than welcome if attempts were made to encourage them to take part in those things and to provide them with support and training to do so.”

In addition to this point on local skills development and training, the Committee have also highlighted many of the key points RPS made in our written and oral evidence in their final report, including the availability of housing as a significant barrier to recruiting and retaining staff in remote and rural areas. 

In Laura’s evidence, she emphasised the vital importance of ensuring a holistic and whole system Government policy approach was required, including in areas such as housing, to ensure a sustainable healthcare workforce in remote and rural areas.

Commenting on the report’s publication, Laura Wilson said:

“I am delighted that the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee have highlighted our evidence which calls for more local skills training for pharmacists in remote and rural areas.

Our members who work in remote and rural areas highlight this is a significant barrier to developing skills and ultimately can be a push factor for pharmacists in remote and rural areas, leaving challenging workforce gaps which increase workforce pressures and negatively affect patients. I’m also pleased to see that the cost of living in remote and rural areas, and especially housing, has been specifically mentioned by the committee as an indirect barrier to healthcare provision in remote and rural areas of Scotland and that the Committee has published policy recommendations to address this.

We would like to see national workforce planning for pharmacy to address the challenges of recruitment and retention of pharmacists across Scotland, and particularly within remote and rural areas. I look forward to working with partners across Scotland on this, and to address some of the challenges highlighted in the report, to ensure we have a healthy pharmacy workforce in every area of Scotland.”

You can watch the full oral evidence session here.