Community pharmacists should be recognised in the National Health Service pharmaceutical services contract for the clinical knowledge they supply, according to Mr Hemant Patel (Immediate Past-President, Royal Pharmaceutical Society).
Speaking at a meeting of the Pharmacy Support Group on March 26, Mr Patel said: "When I recently went to 10 Downing Street to hear a presentation on the new NHS, it occurred to me that the sooner contractor-based community pharmacy realises that physical assets are being devalued and that emphasis and money are going to be channelled towards knowledge based, patient focused services, the better will be its chances of survival.
"Community pharmacists need to receive recognition in the contract for providing clinical knowledge and local knowledge about doctors and, of course, patients."
Mr Patel said that the human capital of community pharmacies - proprietor, pharmacists and staff - were undervalued and were doing work which needed reorganising. Pharmaceutical care would rely on pharmacists devoting more time to caring and individualisation of care. Pharmacists needed time to share ideas about pharmaceutical care and clinical governance without the fear of bosses or inspectors. The greater pharmacists' knowledge the more they could charge for their services and the less vulnerable they were to competition.
Speaking to The Journal after the meeting, Mr Patel likened community pharmacies, their fixtures and stock to computer hardware, which belonged to the proprietor. Computers also needed software, he said, and this was pharmacists' knowledge, which belonged to them.