All patients and members of the public should have access to high quality clinical pharmacy services, irrespective of country and setting. However, while the literature is awash with a plethora of studies which report small scale, pilot innovations in clinical pharmacy, there is a lack of studies which report these innovations being scaled across organisations and countries and which focus on sustainability. This is the theme of the Autumn Symposium of the European Society of Clinical Pharmacy (ESCP) which takes place in Krakow, Poland from 21st to 23rd October 2024. This year’s theme is ‘Implementing and scaling sustainable Clinical Pharmacy’, centring on the key ESCP domains of Clinical Pharmacy Practice, Education and Research [1].

Transformation of services is described as a linear sequence of

  • Innovation—a novel set of behaviours, routines

  • Diffusion—passive spread

  • Dissemination—efforts to persuade intervention adoption

  • Implementation—efforts to mainstream an innovation

  • Sustainability—making an innovation routine until obsolescent [2, 3].

The symposium will focus on the transformation process, with emphasis on the latter stages.

As the acknowledged international leader in advancing quality and innovation in clinical pharmacy, ESCP promotes, supports, implements, and advances education [4], practice [5,6,7,8,9,10] and research in clinical pharmacy [11,12,13,14], to optimise outcomes for patients and society.

The recently updated scope of clinical pharmacy from ESCP describes it as

  1. 1.

    representing both a professional practice and field of research.

  2. 2.

    aiming to optimise the utilisation of medicines to achieve person-centred and public health goals.

  3. 3.

    encompassing cognitive, managerial, and interpersonal activities targeting all stages of the medicines use process, and as a field of research generates knowledge that informs clinical decision-making, health care organisations and policy.

  4. 4.

    a practice that is restricted to members of the pharmacy team.

  5. 5.

    being practiced regardless of setting.

  6. 6.

    encompassing pharmaceutical care but is not restricted to it [15].

The Autumn Symposium in Krakow will provide a forum for clinical pharmacists, clinical pharmacy technicians, academics, researchers, students and others to explore, share and learn from their innovations. The programme includes keynote presentations from internationally renowned speakers, interactive workshops, oral and poster research presentations, networking opportunities, and much more [16].

There is focus on implementing, scaling, spreading and achieving the sustainability of innovations in clinical practice, all supported by new models of education and lifelong learning. This will be consistent with evidence generated both through robust, rigorous research and service evaluation relevant to all key stakeholders. Examples will cover the complete spectrum of health care settings in which clinical pharmacy is practised with a key focus on patient centred approaches tailored to different patient populations, and models of care encompassing autonomous patient assessment and independent prescribing. The use of change management techniques, together with associated drivers and enablers, as well as those barriers which had to be overcome and lessons learnt will be highlighted. This will facilitate others to mirror and translate such best practice and integrate within routine care. There is specific focus on the ageing population, cardiovascular and respiratory disease, diabetes and mental health, antimicrobial resistance, point of care diagnostics, pharmacogenomics and digital enablement, research, and education.

There are opportunities to share and discuss new and innovative approaches to clinical pharmacy education, development, delivery, and evaluation. Dissemination of research findings is central to the programme, with all abstracts published in the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy.

As the affiliated journal to ESCP, we encourage our readers to join this event and contribute their expertise to the discussions.