The advantages of community pharmacies over other potential suppliers of oxygen are to be emphasised in the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's contribution to the Department of Health review of the scope and organisation of the domiciliary oxygen service in England.
That decision was made by the Society's Practice Committee on May 2, when three of the Council's committees met. The committee noted that the review was to examine matters such as patient access to the service, alternative forms of oxygen delivery, supply arrangements (including the arrangements for setting prices), and the cost-effectiveness and affordability of any changes.
The Society would point out that community pharmacies were able to provide an integrated advice and supply service, including advice on other medicines. The service they provided was also local and responsive. There was potential for developing the service through dependent prescribing or, pending legislative change, the use of patient group directions. This could ease the workload of general medical practitioners.
The Practice Committee received a presentation from Mr John Dixon, the project manager for the medicines management project led by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee.
Mr Dixon explained that the aims of the project were to deliver measurable health gain to the patient, to improve value for money for the National Health Service, to construct a new approach to patient care by extending the partnership between pharmacist, patient and physician, to facilitate collaboration between health professions in primary care, and to maximise the use of community pharmacists' skills and training.
The committee noted that the project board was awaiting a response from the Department of Health to a bid for funding to cover a two-phase pilot based on 10 localities, involving 30 GPs, 70 pharmacies and 3,500 patients. Funding had been sought to cover set-up costs for pharmacies and GP practices, fees for patient and GP interviews, loss of profit, training, a research team and project management. The committee agreed to seek an update on the project once the DoH had responded to the funding bid.
The Practice Committee agreed to investigate ways in which the Society could work with other stakeholders to influence the strategic development of pharmacy computer systems and the functions that they should include. A proposal would be prepared for consideration at a future meeting.
The Committee also agreed that, in the light of rapid changes in information technology, the Society's guidelines on pharmacy computer systems, published in ‘Medicines, ethics and practice: a guide for pharmacists', should be updated and then reviewed on a six-monthly basis. The update would include the addition of references to sources of further information.
The Practice Committee approved for publication, subject to some final amendment, a document offering guidance to pharmacists whose work brought them into regular contact with the pharmaceutical industry. The document would cover the conduct of meetings with industry representatives, commercial sponsorship and the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry code of practice for the pharmaceutical industry.
The guidance had been produced in recognition that interaction between pharmacists and the industry was increasing with the involvement of pharmacists in prescribing support for general medical practitioners, in local primary care organisations and potentially in independent or dependent prescribing and in the production and use of patient group directions.
The Practice Committee put forward comments on a document produced by the pharmacy sector committee of the Science, Technology and Mathematics National Training Organisation setting out draft principles for standard operating procedures (SOPs) for dispensing in pharmacies.
The Practice Committee was reminded that, as a further step towards ensuring clinical governance in the dispensing process, the Council had adopted a recommendation of the Society's skill mix report that it should become a requirement for all pharmacies to put in place written SOPs. It had been agreed that, in seeking to progress the matter, the Society should work with the pharmacy sector committee, on which the major employers of pharmacists and their support staff were represented.
The committee supported the view that it would be impossible to develop a "one size fits all" SOP and that a set of guiding principles centred around the key elements of the dispensing process should be developed.
The Education Committee devoted a major part of its meeting to considering possible implications for pharmacy education and training of the death of a three-week-old baby as a result of a mistake made in a pharmacy in the extemporaneous preparation of peppermint water (PJ, March 11, p390). The committee identified a number of points for consideration by the office in carrying out a comprehensive review.
The Science Committee noted that fact sheets for aromatherapy and herbal medicines had now been drafted by subgroups of the working group on complementary medicine and would be reviewed by the working group at its next meeting. Fact sheets were also being prepared on interactions of herbal medicines with allopathic medicines, on homoeopathy and on dietary supplements. They would be provided to pharmacists in due course to assist in dealing with inquiries from the public.
The Science Committee agreed that the Society should submit a bid to run a session at the 2001 Festival of Science organised by the British Association for the Advancement of Science and taking place in Glasgow in September, 2001. The Society's proposed topic was "Cannabis as a medicine".
| Branch observers The following observers from the Society's branches and regions attended the meetings of Council committees on May 2: Mrs P. E. Bourne (treasurer of the Lancaster branch), Mr J. S. Byers (vice-chairman of the Sunderland branch), Mrs S. J. Greensmith (representative of the West Surrey branch), Mr C. W. Hodgson (representative of the Torbay branch) and Mrs C. Hall (representative of the Wessex region). |