The Saudi Society of Clinical Pharmacy (SSCP) is striving to enhance the concept of clinical pharmacy within Saudi Arabia (SA) at all levels. Given the differences that exist between clinical pharmacy education, training, and practice settings in SA and other countries, the SSCP believes that it can play a proactive role in highlighting and streamlining various aspects of clinical pharmacy in SA. By gaining new knowledge, skills, and values through entering clinical practice, clinical pharmacists should be equipped with certain competencies to meet the expectations of the SSCP clinical pharmacy definition. In 2019, the SSCP established an expert writing task force of clinical pharmacy specialists representing different private and governmental sectors to lead and write a series of position statements relating to clinical pharmacy within SA. This position statement seek to identify the core competencies of clinical pharmacists in SA. The SSCP is calling on all educational institutions, postgraduate training programs, and professional organizations to collaborate to guarantee that these competencies are adopted to ensure the professional growth of clinical pharmacists and that optimal individual and population health outcomes are achieved.

The need for healthcare reform in Saudi Arabia (SA) is mostly related to inadequate primary care services, the inconsistent quality of services, and the high demand for workforce capacity and capabilities. Therefore, the proposed healthcare transformation plan is part of the country’s overall transformation plan of Saudi Vision 2030, which aims to prevent morbidity and mortality associated with non-communicable diseases (NCD), communicable diseases, and avoidable injuries. Clinical pharmacists in internal medicine (IM) play an integral role in managing and preventing NCDs and communicable diseases. Most of the leading causes of mortality in SA can be prevented or managed with medications, and highly skilled pharmacist in medication therapy management. To improve the quality of health and well-being of the Saudi population, there is a need for a much larger number of well-trained IM clinical pharmacists in the public and private sectors. This opinion paper by the IM Pharmacy Specialty Network (PSN) of the Saudi Society of Clinical Pharmacy (SCCP) presents the current status of the IM pharmacy workforce in SA and provide initial phase recommendations to help develop the IM pharmacy workforce to serve the needs of the Saudi people. However, to meet the goals of Saudi Vision 2030, all healthcare systems need to work collaboratively with other stakeholders such as MOH, Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development, and SCFHS to prepare a highly skilled and effective Saudi healthcare workforce to meet the high demands of reforming the healthcare system.

Clinical pharmacy services in Saudi Arabia are expanding steadily, particularly with notable developments in critical care pharmacy services and training programs, including four critical care residency programs localized in Riyadh and one program in Jeddah. The Scientific Council of Pharmacy leads extensive efforts to advance clinical pharmacy practice and training under the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties (SCFHS), the accrediting body for critical care training programs and all other specialties. Despite launching critical care pharmacy programs in 2013, currently available accreditation standards and competency assessments for specialized residency programs in critical care were established in 2020. These accreditation standards and competency assessment modalities have been found to have significant areas of improvement based on the feedback of practicing critical care pharmacy residency program directors and trainees over the past few years. This is an opinion paper based on a consensus of critical care and emergency medicine pharmacy experts which recommends updating the current accreditation standards framework and competency assessment blueprint for specialized critical care pharmacy programs. Additionally, it highlights the need to modify the accreditation standards framework for critical care pharmacy programs. Further evaluation of these modalities can be revised as deemed reasonable by governmental authorities by recruiting practicing critical care clinical pharmacy experts.