Competency profiles for community, hospital and industrial pharmacists in the European context have been developed in the EU-sponsored Phar-QA and Phar-IN projects. A Delphi-consultation, involving more than 1250 participants, resulted in a first version of a European Pharmacy Competences framework (EPCF). The framework orders competencies in 11 domains:

1 Personal competences – learning and knowledge
2 Personal competences – values
3 Personal competences – communication and organizational skills
4 Personal competence – research and industrial pharmacy
5 Patient care competences – patient consultation and assessment
6 Patient care competences – need for drug treatment
7 Patient care competences – drug interactions
8 Patient care competences – drug dose and formulations
9 Patient care competences – patient education
10 Patient care competences – provision of information and service
11 Patient care competences – monitoring of drug therapy

In the first round the opinion of community, hospital and industrial pharmacists, together with the faculty members and students, was used to construct competence profiles for community, hospital and industrial pharmacists. Overall a general consensus was observed about the relative importance of the competences in the different domains. On a deeper level some different opinions were seen, in particular with respect to biotechnology competences for industrial vs. community/hospital pharmacists. Details can be found in the publications, which resulted from the project.

A second Delphi round resulted in the production of the European Pharmacy Competences Framework, in which 50 competences are ordered in 11 domains. The competences are described in a recent publication and can be downloaded as a Word document.

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