Camden and Islington health authority in London has launched a repeat prescribing project under which community pharmacists can recommend to participating general medical practitioners changes to increase generic prescribing, synchronise repeat prescribing or rationalise doses. Half of the health authority's pharmacies and almost all of its GP practices are taking part.
Pharmacies are paid £4 for each intervention they make, regardless of whether it is taken up by the GP concerned. Representatives of the HA's primary care groups will follow up with GPs interventions that should have been implemented.
Ms Suhasini Khanderia (community pharmacy adviser, Camden & Islington HA) told The Journal on June 5 that it would be up to individual pharmacies to work out their arrangements for making their recommendations to GPs from whom they received prescriptions. One option would be to fax their recommendations at agreed intervals. She said that the health authority had bought fax machines for all its contractor pharmacies earlier this year.
Participating pharmacies will keep records of their recommended interventions and send these to the HA each month. The health authority will then pay them the number of fees due and forward the forms to PCG representatives so that they can check whether the recommendations are being implemented.
The outcome of the project will be evaluated after three months.
Ms Khanderia said: "One of the most important outcomes will be to improve communication between pharmacists and GPs. Once GPs have had input from pharmacists, they will realise how important the pharmacist is to them and want more."
Mrs Suhas Khanderia is pharmaceutical adviser to Camden and Islington health authority