NAPRA celebrates 30 years of regulatory support

The National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities (NAPRA) is marking a major milestone this year. Since founded in 1995, the organization has played a central role in shaping how pharmacy is regulated across the country, aiming to ensure Canadians can trust the care they receive at the pharmacy counter.Bringing together every provincial and territorial pharmacy regulatory authority, along with the Canadian Forces Health Services, NAPRA serves as a unifying voice for regulators coast to coast. Over three decades, it has developed key resources to support effective regulation, informed public policy and strategy, and provided leadership on the evolving challenges of pharmacy practice.At its core, the association’s mission remains unchanged: to support its members as they protect the health and safety of Canadians.Read: New Canadian guideline provides evidence-based options for smoking cessationFrom the onset, NAPRA’s members endorsed a proposal for a national drug scheduling model that would align the provincial/territorial drug schedules so that the conditions of sale for non-prescription drugs would be more consistent across Canada. This gave way to the National Drug Schedules (NDS) program, a harmonized national model that all of the provinces and territories, except Quebec, have adopted in some manner. NAPRA manages the NDS program on behalf of its members, including program administration and coordination of drug scheduling reviews by the National Drug Scheduling (NDS) Advisory Committee. To best meet the needs of the healthcare system in the future, the organization has begun a multi-phase, multi-year NDS Modernization Project.Another core program that NAPRA manages on behalf of its members is the Pharmacists’ Gateway Canada for International Pharmacists (Gateway), established in 2014 as a central point of contact for international pharmacy graduates (IPGs) who want to be licensed to practise pharmacy in Canada. Gateway provides step-by-step information on the licensing process, a diagnostic tool and learning modules and a centralized document repository. In its 11 years of existence, Gateway has served over 34,000 registrants.Read: British Columbia has a new medication incident reporting programOver the years, NAPRA has developed and published numerous model standards, competencies and other documents for use by its members in their respective jurisdictions. Harmonizing competencies and practice standards using common, national model documents helps to reinforce their credibility, dependability and acceptance throughout Canada, assisting in the delivery of consistent quality care across the country.NAPRA also represents the collective voice of its members in engaging with various interested parties at the national/pan-Canadian and international levels, including Health Canada and other relevant federal government departments, and collaborates with various non-governmental organizations, such as the National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, the International Pharmaceutical Federation, the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, the Canadian Council for Accreditation of Pharmacy Programs, the Pharmacy Examining Board of Canada, the Association of Faculties of Pharmacy of Canada, the Canadian Pharmacists Association, the Canadian Council on Continuing Education in Pharmacy, and many others on matters of mutual interest.Looking to the future, NAPRA plans to keep supporting pharmacy regulators across Canada so patients everywhere can count on safe, skilled and effective care—while continuing to bring added value to its members as new challenges arise.

NAPRA celebrates 30 years of regulatory support

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