"International Centres of Excellence in Hospital Pharmacy"; a SEFH new initiative; the role of the clinical pharmacist in the hospital antibiotic stewardship in Northern Ireland.

Spanish Society of Hospital Pharmacy (SEFH) includes among its purposes and functions the promotion, fostering and furthering of the performance of all kinds of training programmes and scientific projects, together with research and innovation activities in the area of Hospital Pharmacy. These actions are directed both to their development as well as to their appropriate applications, with the ultimate objective of enabling pharmacists specialised in Hospital Pharmacy to acquire a high level of knowledge, which will impact directly on the improvement of the care of patients’ health. For this reason, SEFH has created a new initiative consist of a scientific training exchange programme called “International Centres of Excellence in Hospital Pharmacy”. This programme consists of generating an international network which will connect leading-edge hospitals worldwide in the various areas of Hospital Pharmacy. The collaboration shall be focussed, essentially, on enabling a number of selected pharmacists, currently undergoing specialised training in Hospital Pharmacy in Spain, to have access to a period of training in an international benchmark hospital in order to complete their training on the highest level. Within this SEFH initiative and thanks to contact of Hospital Universitario Fundación Alcorcón, the first international centre interested in cooperating and joining forces in the scope of the specialised training of postgraduates and in the furthering of research has been the Hospital Pharmacy Service of Antrim Area Hospital in Northern Ireland. By this agreement, the commitments undertaken by Antrim Area Hospital under the International Centres of Excellence in Hospital Pharmacy programme are the following: − Accept each year up to three residents or pharmacists, selected by SEFH, in a short period of specialised training in the Hospital Pharmacy Service of the Hospital. Each resident shall be able to participate in a different period of the year, establishing the duration of each training period for between 4 and 6 weeks. − Establish a training programme for the residents or pharmacists beneficiaries.