The Director-General of Ghana Health Services, Dr. Patrick Kuma-Aboagye, has urged Pharmacists to build trust with patients who visit their facilities for healthcare assistance.
He said appearance also matters during interaction with patients and urged them to use plain language instead of jargons.
Dr. Kuma-Aboagye, who gave the advice at the launch of the National Rollout of Standards and Practice Guidelines for Pharmaceutical Services (SPGPS), stated that the programme is almost seven years after its development.
He said the programme is in line with the strategic effort to achieve UHC by 2030, as Ghana’s Primary Health Care (PHC) strategy remains the bedrock of the approach to achieving Universal Health Coverage (UHC), with the focus of improving health outcomes.
According to him, the historic event marks a major milestone in pharmaceutical services delivery in Ghana and is expected to usher in a new era of pharmacy practice.
He expressed the need for standardisation and harmonisation of pharmaceutical activities for efficiency and improved quality of service since it is critical not only for essential service delivery, but also for the attainment of UHC as a country.
He said the UN SDG target 3.8 specifically aims to achieve UHC by 2030, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.
The GHS Director-General noted that pharmaceutical services, like other aspects of health services, thrive on standards and policies, and said the development of the SPGPS marks the second effort of the Ministry of Health (MoH) to standardise and harmonise pharmaceutical services in Ghana.
He disclosed that the document provides the minimum standard guidelines for the provision of pharmaceutical services in health facilities, outlining a minimum level of services that pharmacy departments should consistently provide at the various levels of care.
Dr. Kuma-Aboagye stressed that the SPGPS is the foundation of the strategy to set new standards for pharmaceutical services in GHS, and its roll-out is the key pillar of the programme of work for pharmaceutical services from 2024 to 2026.
He revealed that too often, organisations attempt to fix systems without equipping their people with adequate training tools and support to enable them to make a successful leap toward the new systems in place; hence, the SPGPS  meant to correct the anomaly in the pharmaceutical services space with the anticipation that the rollout and adherence to the document would, among other things, improve patient outcomes, enhance patients’ safety, prudently manage the medicines component of NHIS claims, and facilitate the smooth integration of clinical/ward pharmacy practice into institutional care.
The Director-General also noted that the programme will enhance the smooth delivery of the pharmaceutical services across recently the rollout Network of Practice (NoP) facilities with model health centres as hubs by the GHS.
