Meetings organised by St Helens and Knowsley health authority have helped foster links between hospital, primary care and community pharmacists in the area. The programme of meetings has been extended for a further year.
Mrs Davina Halsall (education and audit facilitation pharmacist, St Helens and Knowsley HA) told The Journal recently that after the first year's meetings the pharmacists taking part had become more vocal about discussing their work. They were more willing to telephone their counterparts to sort out problems that had arisen.
"At the first meeting no-one was talking to each other. You could just see the isolation. At the most recent meeting they were talking together about how they would handle different problems in their pharmacies."
The first meeting had been entitled "Good to talk". It had allowed pharmacists from hospitals, primary care and community pharmacy to talk about their work and the problems they faced. The pharmacists were also encouraged to discuss how barriers to change could be overcome. For instance, in relation to clinical governance, the use of standard forms and letters had been suggested to make it easier for community pharmacists to document their activities.
Subsequent evening meetings covered evidence-based medicine, antibiotic prescribing, smoking cessation, wound care formularies and clinical governance.
Visits had been organised for community pharmacists to Whiston hospital, Prescot, so that they could receive clinical updates and see the activities undertaken by hospital pharmacists. Visits were also made to general medical practitioners' surgeries to see the work of the health authority's 12 primary care and practice pharmacists. These had been popular and were to be repeated this year, Mrs Halsall said.
The health authority has encouraged community pharmacists, including employees and locums, to attend the meetings by paying a continuing professional development allowance of £600 per year. In order to claim this, community pharmacists have to demonstrate that they undertook 30 hours of continuing education a year, including 15 hours on topics set by the health authority. Mrs Halsall was particularly keen to have locum pharmacists take part in the meetings in order to develop their knowledge of local procedures and resources.