A project to develop a pharmacist-led palliative care service for cancer patients in the community has won the first annual Merck Sharp & Dohme joint award of the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists and the National Pharmaceutical Association.
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Hilary Edmondson (left) and Sarah Scargill at the award ceremony |
The project is to involve six community pharmacists who will work with Mr Gaines to further develop pharmaceutical care expertise they have already acquired for patients with life-threatening illness. The pharmacists represent three of the four primary care groups in the East Riding health authority area.
The project involves general medical practitioners registering patients with community pharmacists who will record and monitor prescriptions and discuss issues with GPs, district nurses and Macmillan nurses.
Mr Gaines will act as a specialist information and advisory resource for the community pharmacists and will lead training programmes for them with their primary care teams. He will audit the availability and use of palliative care drugs in the community pharmacies. and will further develop and formalise the stock-holding system for injectable drugs. He will work with PCG pharmaceutical advisers and GP palliative care facilitators to develop local care formularies.
As part of a local public information campaign, the pharmacists will also produce a transportable display about how pharmacy services can help patients and carers to cope with medication issues in life-threatening illness. The display will be used at such sites as hospices and health centres and also be taken to local training courses and health action zone events.
The award presentation was made at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's headquarters on November 19 at a ceremony attended by representatives of the guild, the NPA and MSD plus invited guests. The awards were presented by the Society's President (Mrs Christine Glover) to Mrs Edmondson and Miss Sarah Scargill (representing Mr Gaines, who was unable to be present).
Thanking the guild, the NPA and MSD, Mrs Edmondson said that the award would support the continuation of work that had already demonstrated pharmacists' value in life-threatening illness. She added that a major benefit of the project was that it encouraged partnership working and broke down barriers between health professions. Hospital pharmacists, community pharmacists, general medical practitioners and nurses were all involved in the palliative care team.
Mr Colin Hitchings (independent adviser to the award scheme) said that the invitation to submit applications had attracted an excellent response. A number of the applications had been eminently suitable for follow-up. He added that a conference arranged round the theme of palliative care was to be held in autumn, 2000, at which Mrs Edmondson and Mr Gaines would present a full paper on their project. The winners of the joint award for 2000-01 would be announced at the conference.
Dr Richard Tomiak (medical director, MSD) said that his company marketed a broad range of products, including many new treatments, and recognised the role of the pharmacist in disseminating information about those products to patients. The company had sponsored the award because it believed that its interaction with pharmacists was very important.
The award-winning project continues earlier work by the Hull and East Riding PDG that recently gained a runner-up award in the shared care category of the Pharmaceutical Care Awards, which are jointly sponsored by The Pharmaceutical Journal and Glaxo Wellcome UK Ltd (PJ, July 3, p21). While the Pharmaceutical Care Awards recognise excellence in the development of pharmaceutical services during the previous calendar year, the MSD award is designed to provide funding to initiate a new project or to further develop current research. The award's stated objective is "to identify, develop and disseminate pharmacist-led initiatives to progress evidence-based pharmacy within the National Health Service". A condition of the award is that applications must reflect joint projects between community and hospital pharmacists.