The Times Book of Quotations is not especially complimentary about third-level education. Apparently, “an expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less, until eventually he knows everything about nothing.” According to Marshall McLuhan, “the reason universities are so full of knowledge is that the students come with so much and they leave with so little.” Worse are the American writer Flannery O’Connor’s comments that “everywhere I go I’m asked if I think the university stifles writers”. He adds that “…they don’t stifle enough of them; there’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher”.

Naturally, I live in hope that O’Connor’s observations will one day apply to me. In the meantime I find myself looking back fondly at the years I spent at my own alma mater, the Royal College of Surgeons. In the halcyon days of the mid-1990s, RCSI had but two schools: medicine and nursing. More recently, the college has diversified to incorporate graduate-entry medicine and the additional schools of physiotherapy and pharmacy, and it is the latter that recently came to my attention. 

August 29 marked the official launch of a collaboration between the school of pharmacy at RCSI and the pharmacy department of St John of God Hospital in Dublin. The Pharmacy Act 2007 has instigated a process of significant change within the pharmacy profession from undergraduate level upwards, and it is well recognised that successful implementation of such change will require the combined efforts of (among others) university educators and experienced pharmacy practitioners who can provide specialist clinical experience and learning opportunities. In this context, the hospital will provide training and experience for undergraduate pharmacy students from the new academic year.

Such a synergy is advantageous for all concerned. The current mental health philosophy emphasises the importance of access to local, specialised and comprehensive mental health service provision that is of the highest standard. Here, the expansion of multidisciplinary teams is emphasised, along with a collaboration between primary and secondary care in an effort to facilitate recovery.  

The Department of Health in the UK described 10 essential shared capabilities (ESCs) as fundamental core objectives in the training and education of mental health workers. The ESCs described are: working in partnership; respecting diversity; practising ethically; challenging inequality; promoting recovery; identifying people’s needs and strengths; providing service user-centred care; making a difference; promoting safety and positive risk taking; and personal development and learning. In this context, the Mental Health Commission published a scoping study in 2010 to evaluate the current education and training available to professionals working in Irish mental health services. Among the recommendations in their report, the MHC stated that: courses should be developed in an integrated manner around service requirements; core curricula should be complemented by stand-alone modules; higher education institutions in partnership with service providers should develop work-based inter-professional learning initiatives; and specialised training around key competencies should be available in mental health.

These objectives are particularly important when we consider the prominent role of pharmacy in the provision of psychiatric services. A 2007 Healthcare Commission survey in the UK found that 92% of mental health service users had taken medication for their illness in the previous 12 months. This figure was 98-100% among inpatients. In Ireland, a recent National Service Users’ Executive survey found that around 58% of service users felt they had been given sufficient information about their medication, while only 7% identified a pharmacist as their source of information. 

The role of pharmacy in the provision of quality mental health services is clearly evident, therefore, and several reports in the UK have recommended the development of pharmacy services. According to Pratt and colleagues (2007), a series of small innovations across mental health trusts found that providing wards or community teams with better access to pharmacy services resulted in improved medicines management. Moreover, actual inclusion of pharmacy staff in multidisciplinary teams may lead to better outcomes for service users.  

So, as RCSI and St John of God Hospital begin their partnership in pharmacy training and education, the benefits are clear. It promotes the role of specialist mental health pharmacy in service provision, creates an awareness of current mental health policy at undergraduate level, promotes interdisciplinary working in an area of medicine that spans numerous healthcare settings and provides further innovative training opportunities that reflect service user and carer needs. So, perhaps universities aren’t so bad, after all.