There are so many different ways of delivering training, which can help improve flexibility. These might include:

• Distance learning
• Webinars
• Face to face
• E-learning.

When thinking about your personal development and that of your team, you may find it useful to consider learning theories to deliver the training in the most appropriate style.

Honey and Munford identified four different learning styles, as below. These styles will impact on the type of learning that you find beneficial.

Adult learners like to solve problems, need to know why they are learning something, prefer to be involved in the planning and want to apply the knowledge in practice to see that it has immediate relevance.

Donald Schön in The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think In Action discusses how professionals reflect immediately on a situation, solving a problem using previous experience, but a second reflection also occurs after the event when they consider whether the most appropriate action was taken, or consider other “what if” factors. Customer consultations, such as requests for OTC products for ailments or MURs, may prompt this type of reflection.

Support resources

There are so many different support resources available for personal learning and to help with content development for delivering training to others. This list of resources is not exhaustive, but examples include:

• Journals, professional magazines and digital resources
• Reference books
• Postgraduate education providers
• Learning materials from the CPPE/WCPPE/NES Pharmacy/Northern Ireland Centre for Pharmacy Learning and Development
• New product literature
• Local practice forums (LPFs)
• Virtual reality/simulations such as thelearningpharmacy.com (CPPE)
• Company and product training materials
• Technical training, such as HSCIC training for EPS
• NICE guidelines.

The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has a variety of support available for members in England, Scotland and Wales including:

• The Faculty
• Foundation pharmacy framework
• Developing leadership
• Mentoring.

The Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland also has reference material and links for pharmacists at psni.org.uk. The Association of Pharmacy Technicians UK has CPD information for technicians at aptuk.org and they can also access materials from sources such as CPPE.