Washington, DC – The Pharmacy Guild (TPG) applauded recent comments by Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO Tim Wentworth on the need to achieve provider status for all pharmacists. TPG urges Walgreens to be a partner in ensuring this expansion comes with urgently needed minimum staffing requirements to ensure patient safety and prevent provider burnout.
In remarks late last week, Wentworth spoke to Walgreens’ commitment to securing provider status for pharmacists, a critical issue within the industry which will require significant increases in staffing to execute successfully. By achieving provider status, pharmacists will be able to practice to the full scope of their training and licenses — if that provider status is coupled with sufficient staffing and resources. Ensuring that expanded roles are matched with expanded capacity is essential to the implementation of this proposed change, and the care outcomes of all patients.
The Pharmacy Guild invites Walgreens to be a partner in improving patient safety standards across the industry by joining TPG in the development of a shared legislative framework to secure both independent provider status and safe staffing levels in every state. As conditions inside corporate pharmacies reach a crisis point, The Pharmacy Guild has made waves organizing the first-ever U.S. union exclusively of pharmacy professionals, with improved patient safety through safe staffing levels as a central demand.