FACULTY OF PHARMACY Evaluation and provision of pharmacy services to Indigenous Australians 2013 Dr Nial J. Wheate and Dr Rebekah J. Moles

Closing the Gap To effectively Close the Gap we need to ensure we have health staff that understand Indigenous health needs and we provide appropriate access to health care in Indigenous communities. Pharmacy can, and needs to, play a large role in closing the gap. Until now there has been no focus on the provision of pharmacy services to Indigenous communities. We have recently started a program to improve both Indigenous staff levels in pharmacy and better access to pharmacy services.

Pharmacist recruitment There are 27,000 registered pharmacists in Australia. Only 36 identify as Indigenous (should be 554). Designed the Sydney Pharmacy Indigenous Camp Program (SydPIC): ›Year 7/8 experience day ›3 day summer “health focused camp” for Years 9/10 ›5 day summer camp on pharmacy Years 11/12 ›2 x 5 day winter and spring workshops Former students from SydPIC have already listed Sydney Pharmacy as preferred degree for

Ancillary pharmacy staff More Indigenous pharmacists is only one aspect of pharmacy staffing. Nothing is known about the Indigenous pharmacy technicians. -Number of pharm techs -Training and education 4 Given many Indigenous students don’t have the education achievements to gain direct entry to pharmacy degree enrollment, pharmacy technician training many provide a pivotal step towards a career as a pharmacist.

Provision of pharmacy services What pharmacy services are available to Indigenous communities? -What are their needs? Are their needs different based on location? -What services do we provide at the moment? Hospital v community -What are the barriers to providing better access to pharmacy services? 5

Pharmacy cultural competency Finally, what is the standard of cultural competency for pharmacy in Australia? -Do they understand Indigenous norms? (e.g. extended family) -Different lifestyles and diets -Can we improve cultural competency through mystery shopping? -What training do we provide in our degree and intern programs to equip our graduates with cultural competency? -Lack of Indigenous staff in university to provide guidance. 6