Pharmacy ITO

The client

PITO is the Industry Training Organisation for the pharmacy industry in New Zealand. It is the Standard Setting Body for the qualifications for Pharmacy Technicians and Pharmacy Assistants. PITO asked Workbase to work with them on creating job profiles for Pharmacy Assistants and Pharmacy Technicians and on aligning all their training and assessment material.

The challenge

PITO decided  to have  job profiles  created for Pharmacy Assistants and Pharmacy Technicians after developing their literacy strategy. PITO also wanted to align all their training and assessment materials, so they would meet the same levels and requirements. The ITO also wanted to make sure that they were not imposing any barriers for people using their assessment material and that they really were fit for purpose. As PITO didn't have the expertise they needed in house, they asked Workbase to help.

The solution

Workbase created profiles which outlined the literacy tasks for Pharmacy Technicians and Pharmacy Assistants. The purpose of the profiles is to help identify which skills needed to be developed in the pharmacy workforce. PITO also wanted to identify the skills that needed to be reinforced across their qualifications and throughout their training material. The relevant literacy skills include speaking, listening, reading, writing and numeracy.

From Workbase's analysis of the training and assessment materials, PITO were able to start an improvement process across all these materials. PITO incorporated Workbase's recommendations to create templates using suggestions around format and design and looked carefully at the language used as well.

The results

The profiles were very well received within the industry:

• pharmacy training providers saw value in using the profiles to create their own training and assessment material. 
• the ITO plans to use the profiles in resource and assessment design and
• the industry is keen to use the profiles to inform job descriptions and their recruitment process.

 The training and assessment analysis has led to PITO creating a new assessment template and reviewing other assessments in light of the findings.