Welcome to the IPU Academy Autumn Programme

Welcome to the IPU Academy Autumn Programme, which follows our successful Spring Programme, at which over 1,600 attendances were recorded. Using your personal membership login, you can view and book online all the live learning courses in the IPU Academy Autumn Programme.

The IPU Academy Autumn Programme will deliver Continuing Education (CE) in traditional presentation format, i.e. a two-hour live learning seminar, at a location near you. In addition to the live learning events, we plan to hold a number of national webinars on www.ipuacademy.ie during the Autumn Programme.

The five topics in the IPU Academy Autumn Programme were selected based on your feedback and, as usual, will be delivered in venues countrywide. The topics are all of current relevance and designed to assist you in developing and delivering services to your patients in your pharmacy.

The format for the live learning remains unchanged; courses will start at 8pm sharp and will last two hours. Coffee and refreshments will be served. 

Please note: We decided to introduce an Express Topic Course into the IPU Academy Spring Programme 2017, which proved very popular. The Adult Vaccines: A Continuing Professional Development Programme for Pharmacists course will start at the earlier time of 7.30pm and finish at 9pm. Coffee and refreshments will be available from 7pm, prior to the course starting at 7.30pm, instead of the usual coffee break midway through the course.

The new IIOP system for monitoring our engagement with Continuing Professional Development (CPD) has now come into effect. IPU Academy is here to support your engagement with the new CPD system. There are five stages to the CPD cycle. A copy of the CPD cycle is included in the CPD template which is provided for each topic. You can enter at any stage of the CPD cycle, e.g. by attending an IPU Academy course you will have completed an Action stage of the CPD cycle. You can then download your IPU Academy Attendance Certificate to assist in completing the Document stage of the CPD cycle.

Feedback and suggestions for future topics to be developed by IPU Academy are welcome at ipuacademy@ipu.ie.


High blood pressure is the leading cause of stroke and heart attack. High blood pressure is a silent killer that more than 1.2 million people in Ireland are set to have by 2020. The Irish Longitudinal Study on Ageing (TILDA) 2015 report on hypertension prevalence, awareness, treatment and control in the over 50s in Ireland found that that 64% of people over the age of 50 have high blood pressure, equivalent to 797,000 people in this age group, and nearly half of those are undiagnosed.

The aim of this course is to provide advice and information on the prevention, detection and management of hypertension.

There are approximately 30,000 to 40,000 people living with epilepsy in Ireland.  Dose adjustment and medication adherence are vital to ensure full control of this condition. New agents are now available which minimise side-effects and provide improved symptom control.

The aim of this course is to provide an update on the management of epilepsy and important safety advice on commonly used agents.


(Express Topic, 7.30pm – 9pm)

Acne effects nearly 90% of teenagers and half will continue to experience symptoms as adults. Acne has clear detrimental psychosocial effects and so patients are motivated to seek advice from their pharmacist.

The aim of this course is to provide an overview of the skin condition acne and describe appropriate management and treatment options for acne.

Many health issues emerge for women as they get older such as the menopause and its management and urogenital conditions.  These can adversely affect patient’s quality of life but have a range of treatment options.

The aim of this course is to provide evidence-based advice to women experiencing the menopause and urogenital symptoms.


There have been an increasing number of vaccines recommended by national immunisation guidelines over recent years e.g. HPV, pertussis in pregnancy, meningitis B. In order to ensure that vaccine uptake rates are at optimum levels to maintain herd immunity, awareness and knowledge of vaccines by the public is important.  Pharmacists, as first line healthcare providers are perfectly positioned to provide reliable, evidence based information on vaccines to the public.

The aim of this course is to provide a structured CPD programme for pharmacists on vaccines.