The Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee has asked the Department of Health for £1.8m to pay for a two-year national project to assess the benefits for patients and the National Health Service of medicines management by community pharmacists. The project will concentrate on coronary heart disease.
The bid has been submitted on behalf of the PSNC, the Company Chemists Association, the Co-operative Pharmacy Technical Panel, the National Pharmaceutical Association and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
Mr Michael King (head of professional development, PSNC) told The Journal on January 31: "This is undoubtedly a major achievement. All of the major pharmacy organisations have worked together on this bid, which paves the way forward for community pharmacy. Medicines management, by using the pharmacist's unique range of skills to the full, and by working in partnership with general medical practitioners, takes patient care to a new high."
The project is expected to entail an intervention process centred on regular confidential discussions between community pharmacists and their patients on medication and lifestyle. Subsequently, the outcome of those discussions will be reviewed by pharmacists with general medical practitioners.

Pharmaceutical care/medicines management is already being offered to selected patients by a Glasgow pharmacy (PJ, November 13, 1999, p771)

The intervention process envisaged has five aims (see panel).
The service is expected to be piloted in 10 localities of England and to involve 3,500 patients, about 240 medical practices and up to 200 pharmacies. The pilot sites will be selected to provide a balanced profile of patients across the country.
The intention is to use the project results and the experience gained from the pilot sites to launch a national roll-out of medicines management.
If the funding bid is successful, the next stage in the project is to select a research team to work with the project manager (Mr John Dixon) and to begin identifying suitable pilot sites.
Mr Dixon said that the pilot sites would be a representative series of locations picked to provide a good mix of patients and settings, such as rural, urban, deprived, affluent, ethnic groups, etc. Each location would be expected to include 20 to 25 GPs and 350 CHD patients. CHD had been chosen as a focus for the project because patients were likely to be on multiple medication and CHD was a high national priority for improvement.
Selection would be by a combination of bids to participate and approaches to suitable areas. Some requests for involvement had already been received. Proposals would be sought through local pharmaceutical committees, particularly in areas where primary care groups and health authorities were co-operative with pharmacy.
Pharmacists who take part in the project are expected to be provided with training, paid for from the project funds. They will also receive a fee of £36 per hour for time spent on the project.

The five aims

The five aims of the medicines management intervention process are:

• Measurable health gain for patients
• Improved value for money in prescribing
• Extended partnerships between pharmacists, patients and doctors
• Facilitated primary care professional collaboration
• Maximised use of pharmacists skills and training