GSCF’s Alan Main: Industry-Pharmacy Collaboration Key To Promoting Self-Care
Executive Summary
Commenting on the release of a joint statement by the Global Self-Care Federation and the International Pharmaceutical Federation, GSCF's Alan Main points to the importance of pharmacy in promoting responsible self-care across the world.
Collaboration between industry and pharmacists is crucial in furthering self-care internationally and empowering consumers to self-care responsibly, according to the Global Self-Care Federation’s chairman Alan Main.
Commenting on the publication of a new joint statement between GSCF and the International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP), Main told HBW Insight that the collaboration would “not only assist both organisations in progressing common agendas” but would also “contribute to delivering better health outcomes for all.”
Given the “pace of change” in the global self-care industry, as well as the “increased prominence of self-care as a key contributor to an improved quality of life, to reducing individual and national economic health burdens, and to providing individuals with the ability to take their healthcare into their own hands,” GSCF and FIP “expressed a joint interest” in updating a previous statement issued in over 20 years ago, Main said.
The new joint statement – which lists the responsibilities of pharmacists and manufacturers of self-care products respectively – demonstrated a “firm and renewed commitment by the pharmacy profession and the self-care industry to advance responsible self-care,” he insisted.
Coming soon after GSCF’s rebranding and new strategic direction (Also see "AESGP Annual Meeting, Day 1: Evolving Self-Care In A Changing World" - HBW Insight, 5 Jun, 2019.), Main suggested the statement would serve as a “key point of reference” for the organization’s positioning moving forward that it would “utilize and leverage not only in our own work, but also across our global member base.”
“We hope it also marks the start of further collaboration opportunities with FIP,” he added.
Pharmacists Key To Responsible Self-Care
“Pharmacists play a key role when assisting individuals as they can provide unbiased, evidence-based advice and information about regulated or evidence-based self-care products and services available,” the statement argues.
Often ranked as the “most accessible and most trusted” healthcare professionals by members of the public, the statement points out, pharmacists’ education and training enabled them to translate this evidence-based information into “sound, unbiased advice on self-care products and strategies” for consumers.
Meanwhile, manufacturers – which shared with pharmacists the “common goals” of “providing quality products and services to the public and encouraging responsible and effective self-care” – were responsible for making sure their products were “adequately labelled” with “factual and evidence-based information,” it continued.
Responsible advertising by manufacturers for their products, which was in most countries either regulated by competent authorities or self-regulated by industry, also enabled people to “make an informed decision in managing their own health” and reflected industry’s “commitment to provide the most appropriate information,” the statement added.