Closer Working Between GPs And Community Pharmacists Would Save Lives And Improve NHS Cost Effectiveness And Care Quality

Main Category: Primary Care / General Practice
Also Included In: Pharmacy / Pharmacist
Article Date: 02 Jul 2009 - 5:00 PDT

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The NHS Chief Executive has recently warned that the NHS could have to make 'unprecedented' efficiency savings of up to £20 billion between 2011 and 2014. David Nicholson's Annual Report1 also emphasised that services should where possible move out of hospital to primary care and into the community, to allow both better quality and improved productivity.

Following this, a new analysis published today by the School of Pharmacy, University of London, in partnership with Boots - Better Practices, Better Health - calls for innovative solutions to the challenge of enabling closer working between GPs and community pharmacists. Without such progress the NHS may not be able to make both service quality improvements and the productivity gains it needs to achieve.

Author Professor David Taylor commented today: 'After 2011, the NHS is unlikely to enjoy significant growth in its real overall spending for several years. We will have to make better use of existing resources and focus more on effective preventative measures - including life style changes and safe and affordable medicine taking - to go on improving health outcomes. More effective joint working by community pharmacists and GPs and their practice colleagues will be essential for this. Without it, counterproductive rivalries between community pharmacy and GPs would leave patient needs unmet and the professionals involved vulnerable.'

Better Practices, Better Health highlights pharmacist led Medicine Use Reviews and NHS Health Checks for vascular disease risks as examples of areas where the effective co-ordination and targeting of complementary GP and pharmacist services is needed. Unnecessary duplication of tests or poor communication of findings thorough lack of computer record linkages can inconvenience service users and waste NHS resources.

The new report concludes that both competition and co-operation are needed to meet patient and community needs. Closer working within the primary care system could be achieved in a number of ways, including:

- creating shared financial incentives which reward both pharmacies and GP practices when they work efficiently together to deliver good quality care;

- using IT links between GPs and pharmacists for exchanging (with patient permission) screening and treatment information, in order to enhance care standards and increase both cost effectiveness and safety;

- promoting premises sharing and linked new practice models which encourage 'joined up care' and easier patient access to services. One option is for GP practices to be based in pharmacy owned and managed premises, as well as in other types of health centre.

Better Practices, Better Health notes the importance that many NHS GPs place on establishing holistic relationships with those for whom they provide care. It argues that to further enhance the contributions they make to their communities, primary care professionals need also to consider more fully their relationships with each other, in order build trust and work together to ensure that patients receive the best quality care.

Peter Gibson, a pharmacist and Director of Public Policy for Alliance Boots, said 'This report is a timely reminder of the opportunity for policy makers and health professionals to help make our primary care system even more effective and efficient. We know patients value greatly their individual relationships with their GPs and pharmacists. We now need to work together to move beyond silo thinking and ensure that care is joined up and seamless, to bring about the step change in the quality of care we all want to deliver for patients.'

Notes

Better Health, Better Practices can be accessed at http://www.pharmacy.ac.uk It was written by Professor David Taylor and Dr Jennifer Newbould.

1 The Year 2008/09 was launched on Wednesday 20 May 2009 at the annual NHS Chief Executives' Conference.

Source
NHS