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PGEU Position Paper on Artificial Intelligence
PGEU acknowledges the valuable role that Artificial Intelligence (AI) can play as a support tool for community pharmacists to meet patient needs. AI has the potential to contribute to the transformation of the pharmacy sector, among others, by automating administrative and logistic tasks, optimizing supply chains, improving communication with patients or enhancing pharmaceutical care. By offering clinical decision support and increasing medicatio...
PGEU Position Paper on the Critical Medicines Act
Medicine shortages have become a persistent threat to public health across Europe. Despite community pharmacists’ continued proactive efforts to find solutions, we continue to see a negative impact on patients’ health and a concerning erosion of patients’ trust in the medicines supply chain. Medicine’s unavailability causes inconvenience and distress to patients, and it can lead to discontinuation of treatment, increased co-payments or ou...
PGEU Position Paper on Pharmacists Workforce Shortages
Annex: National experiences from PGEU members Belgium: How to make the pharmacist’s profession more attractive The National Pharmacists Association (APB) developed 3 working groups aiming at discussing the matter of pharmacy workforce shortages. The working group on “Offer” worked and liaised with the universities, with the objective on working on the conditions for pharmacy studies. The working group on “Demand”, explored the to...
Joint Statement on Electronic Product Information (ePI)
Doctors, nurses, community and hospital pharmacists, hospitals and healthcare services, consumers, older people, health insurance funds and not-for-profit health mutuals, call on legislators to maintain paper package leaflets, and use electronic leaflets as a complementary tool. Ahead of the future co-legislators’ interinstitutional negotiations on the European Commission’s Proposal for a revised pharmaceutical legislation in the European Uni...
PGEU position paper on medicine shortages 2024
For over a decade PGEU has been publishing an annual medicine shortage report and over the years we saw the number of shortages growing progressively worse in all countries. Despite continued pharmacists’ efforts to find solutions, we witness a significant negative impact on patients’ health and a concerning erosion of patients’ trust in the healthcare system. The unavailability of a medicine causes inconvenience and distress to the pat...
PGEU Position Paper on the Role of Community Pharmacists in Vaccination
Annex PGEU members examples of the contribution of community pharmacists to vaccination strategies Belgium: Community pharmacists as vital support for COVID-19 vaccination campaigns During the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmacists played a crucial role that was even enhanced from the moment vaccines became available. A law was passed to allow the administration of COVID-19 vaccines by trained pharmacists, amongst a preventive strategy encompa...
PGEU Position Paper on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)
AMR occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites change over time and no longer respond to medicines, making infections harder to treat, increasing the risk of disease spread, severe illness and death. The emerging increase of microbes that are resistant to antimicrobial treatments has become a global public health concern that threatens the effective treatment of infectious diseases: In 2019: estimated 4.95 million deaths (1.27 million d...
PGEU Position Paper on the European Health Data Space
PGEU welcomes the proposal for a European Health Data Space (hereinafter, “EHDS” or the “Proposal”) and supports the general objective of the EHDS of facilitating the access of health data across the Union for primary and secondary uses, whilst ensuring citizens have control over their own health data. PGEU also agrees it is vital to strengthen health systems and the healthcare workforce, including by digital transformation, appropriate...
PGEU Position Paper on the revision of the general pharmaceutical legislation
European community pharmacists welcome a revision of the EU general pharmaceutical legislation as a tool to help ensuring Europe’s supply of safe and affordable medicines to meet patients’ needs and to support the financial sustainability and the resilience of health systems. Both the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the unacceptable, increasingly negative impact medicine shortages have on patients access to medicines require bold, ambitious, an...
Community Pharmacists Supporting Healthcare Systems: Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Crisis
Community Pharmacists Supporting Healthcare Systems: Lessons Learned from the COVID-19 Crisis
PGEU statement on the potential use of the data contained in the EMVS to monitor shortages
Position Paper on Medicine Shortages
Executive summary The unavailability of medicines is on the rise in Europe and it has a tremendous impact on patients. Medicine shortages occur across all healthcare settings and involve both essential life-saving medicines and very commonly used drugs. Community pharmacists are very concerned about this phenomenon, which can compromise patients’ health. Moreover, pharmacies and pharmacists invest a lot of resources dealing with shortages which...
Pharmacy 2030: A vision for Community Pharmacy in Europe
Community pharmacists are ready to enhance their contribution and to help Europe’s health systems.
Position Paper on Big Data & Artificial Intelligence in healthcare
European community pharmacists consider new, innovative and automated technologies a useful tool to support and complement their expert professional advice to patients and to deliver more efficient, sustainable and high-quality pharmacy services. Community pharmacists have the infrastructure and expertise to deploy Big Data and AI in practice: they already use digital services on a daily basis (e.g. dispensing ePrescription, checking for medicati...
Open letter from the Pharmacy Profession
The new term of the European Parliament offers an unprecedented opportunity for Members of the European Parliament to determine the course of EU action on health issues. Indeed, 2019 is a crucial year for the EU institutions to decide on whether maintaining health policy in the EU agenda. PGEU calls for the continuation of a comprehensive and coherent EU approach to health and for health dossiers, including medicines and medical devices, to remai...