HEIW Pharmacy Cultural Awareness Campaign

Our HEIW Pharmacy Cultural Awareness Campaign has been designed to promote self-reflection on competence regarding cultural equity and to help you develop your knowledge and understanding of people from different cultures to your own.

The campaign focuses on the pharmacy profession and utilises practice-based scenarios that highlight patient experiences within pharmacy settings. Whilst the campaign is open to the whole pharmacy workforce, we encourage and welcome engagement from other professions and healthcare students. As we work to develop and enhance what we can offer for future campaigns, we will aim to take a multi-professional approach to facilitate learning across professions. There will be an opportunity to provide feedback at the end of the campaign, but if you have any comments before then please fill out this feedback form or email HEIW.pharmacy@wales.nhs.uk.

Introduction

Being a culturally competent practitioner contributes to improved health and wellbeing for patients and is known to reduce health inequalities. Both the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) have acknowledged the importance of embedding equality, diversity, and inclusion within working practices.

The GPhC published their Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy in November 2021 and the RPS published their strategy for Improving Inclusion and Diversity Across our Profession in 2020.

Within Wales, our Workforce Strategy for Health and Social Care emphasises the importance of equality and diversity within and across professions as well as the positive impact compassionate and inclusive leadership has on staff and patient experience.

The GPhC define cultural competence as the “ability to understand and interact with people in a way that recognises and respects diversity and cultural difference, including values, beliefs, and behaviours”.

Therefore, we have put together this campaign to encourage you to reflect on:

Your competence in engaging with and learning about different cultures and communities
Your confidence to deliver culturally competent person-centred care
The challenges that may be faced by those accessing pharmacy services
What you are doing and what you plan to do to develop you own cultural awareness
How developing your cultural competence can benefit you, your colleagues, and the communities you serve.

Here's how you can get involved...

Through a series of challenges, our Cultural Awareness Campaign provides you with the opportunity to gain knowledge and enhance your understanding of the experiences of people from different cultures to your own.

You will learn the impact that making assumptions about a person and their beliefs, needs, values, and/or concerns can have, and approaches that can support in creating safe and inclusive spaces for all.

You will also learn how to approach identifying a person’s needs and preferences with dignity and respect regardless of their age, physical or learning ability, gender, race, religion, sexuality, or how they choose to live.

A detailed over of the campaign was provided during our Cultural Awareness Campaign webinar earlier this year (2022). If you missed it, you can catch up here.

The Campaign Challenges

Challenge	Challenge Task(s)
1	Complete our cultural competence self-reflection tool
2	Complete two cultural competence e-learning modules – 20minutes per module
3	Read patient statement and reflect on learning
4	Watch patient video and reflect on learning
5	Join RPS Action in Belonging, Culture and Diversity (ABCD) group and attend an ABCD group meeting. Meetings are held once every two months. Don’t forget you need to join the ABCD group here to be able to join a meeting.
6	Complete our Fast Pharmacy Facts and/or read a selection of RPS Blogs showcasing inclusive pharmacy practice
7	Read practice scenario and reflect on learning
8	Watch patient video and reflect on learning
9	Complete cultural competence self-reflection tool and provide feedback on campaign
10	Make a pledge to be a culturally competent practitioner through the RPS and take a look at our signposting resource

Click on the buttons below to access the challenges:

Thank you for participating. We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education (CPPE) who provided the inspiration for this campaign and have supported in its development through sharing of resources and materials.

Resources provided by CPPE will be acknowledged throughout the campaign.