Pharmacy Should Play Greater Role In Primary Care, UK

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Also Included In: Pharmacy / Pharmacist
Article Date: 09 Jul 2008 - 1:00 PDT

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The English Pharmacy Board (EPB) of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain welcomes the government's recognition of the role of pharmacy in delivering patient choice through community based services, as mentioned in the NHS Next Stage Review report Our vision for primary and community care.

The EPB would like to draw special attention to the following areas of the Strategy:

Public Health

The EPB is pleased that the NHS is putting emphasis on helping people to stay well. Pharmacy is central to helping the NHS meet this challenge. Pharmacy has successfully provided services such as smoking cessation and obesity management for a number of years and should continue playing its part in delivering such services. There are opportunities for community pharmacy to build on these services and play a larger role in areas such as alcohol misuse.

We are also pleased that the government has recognised that pharmacy should play a key role in vascular checks commissioned across the country, as well as in long-term-care medication advice and in providing input into care plans.

Minor ailments

Research suggests that 51.4 million GP consultations a year are for minor ailments alone which could be handled by a pharmacist. If pharmacists were to provide a national minor ailments scheme (as mentioned in the Strategy) then this would help to ease the pressure on GPs, allowing them to concentrate on more complex patient conditions.

NHS Care Records Service

The EPB notes that the government will review the scope of access to the NHS Care Records Service to embrace a fuller range of organisations that provide care to NHS patients, including pharmacy. In the interests of patient safety, and as an enabler to the integration of care, it is important that pharmacists and other primary care providers have appropriate access to details of patients' medical records.

Polyclinics

The EPB welcomes the government's intention to explore new models of integrated care, and supports the integration of services through better commissioning. PCTs should create a genuinely level playing field among all providers including pharmacy, but at the same time incentivise the integration of services along care pathways.

The Strategy restates the government's commitment to use community settings to deliver selected services traditionally provided in hospitals, without prescribing a particular organisational model. Much of the thinking around these moves has been associated with polyclinics. The EPB believes that patients and the public should be able to choose the healthcare services they need, whether it be visiting a pharmacy, GP surgery or a polyclinic.

There must be an agreement whereby impact assessments will be guaranteed on a wide-scale wherever there are plans to introduce 'super-surgeries'. However, new initiatives around service networks in primary care could mean new opportunities for pharmacists to take on board additional services.

Beth Taylor, Chair of the EPB, said: "There is an enormous opportunity here for pharmacy in helping people stay healthy, as well as relieving GP workload through wider commissioning of minor ailment schemes. The Board supports continued pharmacy membership of the National Clinical Advisory Group. The establishment of Strategic Health Authority clinical advisory groups which are appointed by competition is also an important new opportunity for pharmacists to act as medicines management 'champions' at local level. As we have already seen in London, this is a key way for pharmacy to contribute to reshaping services together with other clinicians. I would strongly encourage good pharmacy candidates to come forward for these exciting new roles."

Steve Churton, the Society's President, said: "It is pleasing to see that this strategy sets out a vision for how to improve patient choice and accessibility. The emphasis is very much on what patients need and want. Community pharmacists have broad experience of delivering services with a customer focus and this will be an asset to the NHS as it develops in the future. It is clear that pharmacy has the potential to play a much larger role in the provision of primary and community care services. "

Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain