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16th Annual Meeting
Report of the 16th Annual Meeting of the EuroPharm Forum
11-13 October 2007 in Bratislava, Slovak Republic
The 16th Annual Meeting of the EuroPharm Forum took place on 11-13 October 2007 in Bratislava, Slovak Republic.
Sixty delegates, representing 21 member countries, attended the General Assembly on 12 October to assess the work of the past year, plan future activities and to decide on issues of policy.
Opening
Ms Inger Lise Eriksen, President of the EuroPharm Forum, welcomed the delegates and observers of the Forum and gave the floor to the
President of the Slovak Chamber of Pharmacists, Mr Ján Valjan, who welcomed the participants to Bratislava, expressing his hopes that they would all enjoy the meetings. The President then gave the word to Ms Darina Sedláková, MPH, representative of the
WHO Country Office in the Slovak Republic. Ms Sedláková focused her speech on the collaboration between the WHO and the EuroPharm Forum as well as on the collaboration between the local WHO Country Office and the pharmacists of the Slovak Republic. Finally, the EuroPharm Forum President thanked the opening speakers and those involved in the work of the EuroPharm Forum, and expressed her hope for a wonderful meeting, with professional issues on the agenda and time for relaxation in between.
As Mr Gérard Schmets, Director a.i., Division of Country Health Systems, representative of the Office of the
Regional Director, WHO Regional Office for Europe, regretfully had to send his apologies, Mr Kees de Joncheere, Regional Adviser, Health Technology and Pharmaceuticals, WHO Regional Office for Europe, spoke, on his behalf, of the WHO perspective on health systems (
see presentation), leading to an introduction to the
WHO European Ministerial Conference on Health Systems in Tallinn, Estonia, on 25-27 June 2008, the objectives of the Conference being:
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to gain better insight into the impact of health systems on the health status in Europe and, hence, on economic growth and, secondly
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to take stock of recent evidence on effective strategies to improve the performance of health systems in the light of ever-increasing pressures for sustainability of health.
The theme of the Ministerial Conference is the relationship between
‘Health Systems, Health and Wealth’ which has an impact on economy and on health outcomes. Executive Committee Member, Mr Th(Dick)FJ Tromp, Moderator of the EuroPharm Forum Working Group on Health Systems, encouraged the audience to contribute to the preparations of a statement on behalf of the Forum for use at the Ministerial Conference in Tallinn.
General Assembly
Following this extended opening, the General Assembly started. The EuroPharm Forum President, referring to the
Annual Report of the Executive Committee, pointed to the work carried out within the frame of the EuroPharm Forum in the past year.
On matters concerning
membership, the General Assembly duly noted that the Albanian Pharmaceutical Association, following its dissolution, and the Syndicat des Pharmaciens Luxembourgeois, following an internal decision, had resigned their membership in 2007. Furthermore, the Forum agreed to terminate the membership of the Pharmaceutical Association of Lithuania due to continuous non-payment of membership fees.
Despite a slight deficit overall, the
Final Results 2006 came out much more positive than anticipated.
Turning to future perspectives, the EuroPharm Forum President referred to the
Strategic Plan 2007-2008, and stressed that the Executive Committee would work its best to achieve the goals set up in the Plan. The President encouraged the member associations to become involved.
For the first time in years, the Forum presented a break-even budget, which the Assembly noted with satisfaction. With the
Budget 2008, the Executive Committee, therefore, suggested unchanged membership fees in 2008; this proposal was accepted by the Forum.
The delegates approved of the proposed dates for the
coming year’s Annual Meeting, which will, thereby, take place in Copenhagen on 3-4 October 2008.
Finally, Mr John Chave of the
PGEU addressed the General Assembly highlighting the PGEU’s support of the EuroPharm Forum.
Professional Programme
In the afternoon, a professional session was held emphasising the
professional work carried out in the EuroPharm Forum. Chairman of the session was Mr Th(Dick)FJ Tromp, who provided an overview of the status of the professional work within the EuroPharm Forum. This account was followed up by reports from the working groups on
Avian Flu, presented by Ms Florence Petit, and on
Cancer, by Ms Ingunn Björnsdóttir. Since the audience was primarily made up of policy-makers and decision-makers, a
breakout session was arranged during which the Forum delegates were asked to discuss:
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the level of involvement of the member countries
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outcomes/results expected by the member countries want, and, finally,
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how the Forum can best communicate with its members.
The discussions were very fruitful and produced several ideas for the EuroPharm Forum Executive Committee and the Programme Coordinators to work with.
The breakout session was followed by a presentation by Ms Eeva Teräsalmi of a concrete product of the EuroPharm Forum, available to its members, namely the Country Database – a compilation of input, provided by Forum members, on their national, professional activities. The
Country Database constitutes a tool for the Forum members who can, hereby, gain access to reports on activities in other member countries and learn about the experiences of others, eg prior to initiating own activities on issues already dealt with by other members.
Mr Balázs Hankó went on to present a concrete example of a project: the
Hungarian Diabetes Project, which is the most extensive domestic, national blood-glucose level measurement programme with the largest number of participants to be carried out in Hungary to date (
see presentation).
Finally, Ms Mona Tawab presented the results from a survey carried out in Germany concerning
counterfeit medicines. The survey revealed that medicines purchased via the Internet, and subsequently analysed, did not all contain the declared substance or the correct amount of the substance declared (
see presentation).
Symposia on Migration and E-pharmacy
On the second day of the Annual Meeting, a
symposium on migration issues was arranged. Mr Luc Besançon chaired the day with much enthusiasm and commitment. The symposium was opened with welcome addresses by Ms Michaela Gajdosová of the Ministry of Health of the Slovak Republic and Ms Inger Lise Eriksen, President of the EuroPharm Forum.
Ms Tana Wuliji presented the
WHO perspective
(
see presentation) on human resources for health and the
FIP perspective
(
see presentation) on Pharmacy Workforce and Migration. The presentations of the two views were followed by 3
responders, Mr Igor Minarovic, Slovak Republic; Mr Balázs Hankó, Hungary; and Mr Henri Lepage, France, looking at migration from perspectives related to academic issues, the healthcare workers’ education policy, and the differences between pharmacy practice in various within Europe.
On behalf of Ms Nina Sautenkova, Health Technology and Pharmaceuticals, WHO Regional Office for Europe, who sent her apologies, Mr Kees de Joncheere, Regional Adviser Health Technology and Pharmaceuticals, WHO Regional Office for Europe, gave a status of the standards of
Good Pharmacy Practice in the Newly Independent States
(
see presentation). He concluded that the NIS countries are highly committed to improving pharmacy practice and education in their countries.
Under the title
‘Impact of Workforce Shortages and Imbalances on the Provision of Pharmacy Care Services’, three speakers addressed the audience. Ms Karen Hassell provided an introduction to the challenges and possibilities of migration from the recipient perspective (
see presentation). Mr Attila Horváth Sziklai gave the Hungarian perspective on migration, and Ms Ala Ciobanu gave an overview of the situation in Moldova (
see presentation).
Finally, the Slovak Chamber of Pharmacists arranged a symposium on
E-pharmacy from a Slovak Perspective. Mr Igor Minarovic gave an insight into the Slovak situation and presented the Slovak database NobelPLUS (
see presentation). Then, Mr Juraj Karovic reported on the EU project on patient profiles and the large-scale pilot project in which the Slovak Republic was involved.
Mr Luc Besançon closed the sessions by summarising the events of the day and expressing his hope that the participants had all learned something from the presentations.
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