Michał Byliniak, Katarzyna Galon, Iwona Arabas

The way to Pharmaceutical Care in Poland – practice, definitions and act
2021-02-24

The provision of medical advice and assistance to the sick by pharmacy staff is abundantly recorded in historical sources. The bad state of health of, above all, agricultural workers in the Polish countryside was also noted by the members of the Warsaw Society of Friends of Science (1800-1832) and on their initiative a competition had been opened for a universal popular-science publication aiming to supply knowledge on the methods of first aid and the most useful medicines.At the beginning of the 19th century commonly available medical guides were confronted with dangerous self-treatment.

A manor medicine cabinet, already a customary institution in the 18th century, in the 19th century became an institution that was legally sanctioned by the 1844 ordinance “On Household Medicine Cabinets and and First-Aid”. Confirming the great importance of well-maintained household medicine dispensaries back in the early 20th century, a similar regulation was promulgated in 1920 by the Minister of Public Health entitled: A List of Medicinal Articles Which May Be Kept in Household Medicine Dispenseries.

In professional pharmacy there had been a debate over the decades, which in the 1990s led to the formation of an international movement for the “responsible provision of pharmacotherapy to achieve specific goals to improve patient quality of life”.

The information and educational obligations of pharmacists in the modern world began to play an increasingly important role, but they were never legally sanctioned although at the beginning of the 21st century, universities had already undertaken the task of introducing the subject of Pharmaceutical Care to the curriculum.

An important step in bringing pharmacists closer to implementing pharmaceutical care was its inclusion in the government document “Polityka Lekowa Państwa 2018–2020“ (“State Drug Policy 2018–2020”). In Decembre 2020, the “Ustawa o zawodzie farmaceuty” (the Pharmacist Profession Act “) was passed. Its content indicates pharmaceutical care as one of the basic tasks of a pharmacist, also defining services that can be provided in pharmacies.

Keywords: pharmaceutical care, health education, Act on the profession of pharmacist.

© Farm Pol, 2021, 77 (1): 34–39