A new best practice paper from the Pharmaceutical Group of the European Union (PGEU) highlights community pharmacy’s role in ensuring the safe, effective use of medicines across Europe.

The paper provides an overview of the activities and services community pharmacists provide to ensure pharmacovigilance, and makes several key recommendations.

These include: the expansion of services such as medication reviews and new medicines services; giving pharmacists access to shared electronic health records; and interdisciplinary collaboration between pharmacists and other healthcare professionals.

PGEU said: “As the experts in medicines, the most accessible group of healthcare professionals in Europe and often the last professional a patient sees before taking a medication, community pharmacists are profoundly implicated in pharmacovigilance, medication use and patient safety.”