Inclusive Pharmacy Practice (IPP) is a joint initiative with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK and 13 other national partner organisations.

IPP focuses on making the workplace more inclusive for pharmacy professionals, with a senior leadership that reflects our diverse communities, to improve health inequalities in the population. It involves open conversations and meaningful actions to improve the experience of both patients and pharmacy professionals.

It is about engaging with local communities, helping to improve their health, and addressing the inequalities that people – particularly those from ethnically diverse backgrounds – can experience. For example, COVID-19 had a disproportionate impact on people from ethnically diverse backgrounds.

Our IPP principles

The 16 partners have signed up to these IPP principles for all pharmacy professionals:

Theme 1: Leadership and Representation

Principle 1: We will strive towards pharmacy professionals being an exemplar among UK health professionals for equality, diversity, inclusion, fairness and belonging.

Principle 2: We will commit as professionals to value all people and to adopt and promote a culture of zero tolerance to all kinds of harassment, bullying and discrimination in the workplace.

Theme 2: Education and Training

Principle 3: We will proactively seek to learn and understand communities and cultures so that we can be more effective health and care practitioners and providers.

Theme 3: Healthcare Service Delivery

Principle 4: We will champion national and local policies and initiatives to address health and workforce inequalities.

View the IPP Advisory Board members. For the first half of 2022, the Board’s priority was CVD (cardiovascular disease) prevention. From July 2022 to July 2023 the Board focused on diversity in senior pharmacy professional leadership including differential attainment in pharmacy students, trainees and early career professionals.

Our partners

We are working closely with 15 partner organisations from across pharmacy who feel as strongly as we do about improving practice and achieving positive change. Representatives from the following organisations take part in our Improving Practice and Engagement Group for IPP to collaborate and share learning:

•  Association of Independent Multiple Pharmacies
• Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK
• Community Pharmacy England
• Company Chemists’ Association
• General Pharmaceutical Council
• Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists
• Health Education England
• Pharmacists’ Defence Association
• Pharmacy Schools Council
• Primary Care Pharmacy Association
• Royal Pharmaceutical Society
• National Pharmacy Association
• Office for Health Improvement and Disparities
• UK Black Pharmacists’ Association
• UK Clinical Pharmacy Association

Further information and resources

Read the Pharmacy Workforce Race Equality Standard report and Inclusive Pharmacy Practice Delivery Plan, which set out important actions to improve equality, diversity and inclusion in pharmacy teams across the NHS.

The first issue  focuses on reducing health inequalities in cardiovascular disease and the second issue and third issue look at ways we can work together to improve the diversity of people in senior pharmacy professional leadership roles.

Visit our Inclusive pharmacy practice FutureNHS page for more information, case studies and links to webinars about population health management. The FutureNHS platform requires a log in.

Watch a webinar about hypertension on FutureNHS, organised by the National Healthcare Inequalities Improvement Programme.