Jeroen van de Pol

167 6 General discussion can learn from each other and be trained in (future) collaboration. Similarly, after obtaining a university degree, community pharmacists must be educated and trained together with future GPs within post-academic education. This joint training will increase the frequency of interprofessional collaboration and the awareness within both professions of how further collaboration can improve the quality of each other’s work [40-42]. Skills and knowledge of pharmacy technicians Pharmacy technicians’ skills and knowledge should be complementary to the ambition of the community pharmacy profession. In the current setting, pharmacy technicians predominantly focus on the dispensing process and less on other activities in which they can support the community pharmacist. Examples of such support are office management, quality management, and specific CPS (such as patient counselling at first dispensing and instruction on medical devices). Currently, pharmacy technicians undertake a mid-level vocational education. Counseling is a part of this training, amongst several other topics, such as basic pharmacology and pharmacotherapy, quality assurance, and compounding. For community pharmacy practice, one may question whether the focus on the provision of CPS in this vocational education should be further increased [43, 44]. In addition, aspects such as managerial skills and interdisciplinary collaboration may need more attention and may aid pharmacy technicians in supporting community pharmacists’ focus on CPS [44]. Community pharmacists currently lack this form of support (for example, delegating certain managerial activities) from pharmacy technicians, resulting in community pharmacists performing these activities themselves (See chapter 2.1 and 2.2). A competency framework for pharmacy technicians has been developed for pharmacy technician education and should be fully implemented to ensure the supporting capabilities of pharmacy technicians in daily practice [44]. However, expecting pharmacy technicians to be capable of providing full support with regard to both CPS and managerial activities may be unreasonable. Therefore, pharmacy technicians should be given the opportunity to differentiate during education. Finally, sufficient postgraduate education and training should be available and, to some degree, mandatory for pharmacy technicians (as for community pharmacists). Currently, pharmacy technicians can be registered in a “license register” and/or a “quality register”. The latter lists pharmacy technicians who have participated sufficiently in additional postgraduate education and training. However, being listed only in the “license register” has no influence on daily practice. Therefore, being registered in the quality register should preferably become mandatory for pharmacy technicians.