2021 will mark a milestone in the history of community pharmacy as a year of resilience and progress. All across Europe, community pharmacists endured, rallied up and expanded their action to as-sist patients, to protect access to treatments and to deliver health services to their respective communities. In many countries, they played a key role in the swift and wide rollout of unprecedented COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, while ensuring the success of testing strategies to curb the spread of the virus. As the pandemic placed enormous pressure on European healthcare systems, com-munity pharmacists have shown that they could do a lot and that patients can count on them, even in such difficult times. With this in mind, we all should be proud of their invaluable contribution and incredible hard work throughout the past year. This trying ex-perience highlighted the identity and mission of community phar-macies, as resources close to citizens at the forefront of health sys-tems, providing advice on treatments and beyond, ready to adapt
Foreword Alain Delgutte, PGEU President 2021
and convey each and very public health message and action to serve patients.
2021 was a very busy and prolific year for PGEU too. With the crisis calling for a pragmatic approach, PGEU focused its work on draw-ing lessons from the pandemic crisis, which points to the impor-tance of broadening the scope of community pharmacy practice and recognising the value of pharmaceutical services that have proven their relevance over the past months. PGEU’s Annual Conference in Nice was dedicated to this learning exercise, focusing on three key challenges: new pharmacy services, medicines shortages and digital health. The conference crossed best practices and expertise from PGEU members, health authorities, pharmaceutical, scientific and digital experts, supported by a summary leaflet on community pharmacists current and future contribution to healthcare systems and a comprehensive overview of crisis-proof pharmacy services.
All across Europe, community pharmacists endured, rallied up and expanded their action to assist patients, to protect access to treatments and to deliver health services to their respective communities. In many countries, they played a key role in the swift and wide rollout of unprecedented COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, while ensuring the success of testing strategies to curb the spread of the virus.”
PGEU Annual Report 2021
Community pharmacists exemplar role as primary care providers in the COVID-19 pandemic
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