From Dr L. Goodyer, MRPharmS and others
SIR,—Well done, Professor Chapman, for presenting a clear picture of
how the latest Government plans will impact on the practice of pharmacy over
the coming years (PJ, October 21, p615).
We are amazed that following Lord Hunt’s announcements there has been so
little correspondence to date in the letter pages of The Journal.
It seems clear to us that community pharmacists will be dramatically affected
by these proposals and that they will be expected to work in very different
ways. The simple message is that pharmacists can no longer focus their activities
on dispensing duties and the bulk of remuneration will be for patient services,
the proposed medicines management schemes being one important example.
We also believe that implicit in the plan is the potential for fundamental changes
in the supervision regulations, which lie at the heart of current community
pharmacy practice.
In the light of this we would have thought that the letter pages would be full
of prophecies of doom or predictions of a “golden future”. Instead
there appears to have been a deafening silence from practitioners. It is our
belief that pharmacists who cannot or will not take up the proposals will be
left out in the cold, and indeed the National Health Service plan states quite
clearly that this would be the result.
We are aware that various pharmacy bodies are looking at the plan. Surely practitioners
who are directly affected by these proposals should meet them with a vigorous
and active debate. Perhaps part of the problem is that details regarding practical
proposals for the implementation of the plan have yet to be clearly defined.
How many have a clear vision of how community pharmacists will support medicines
management in their day-to-day practice? Is Professor Chapman’s the correct,
or only, model for such schemes?
Finally, we strongly agree that training is of paramount importance. The postgraduate
courses at King’s and most other universities now reflect the Government’s
proposals, and the undergraduate curriculum has also gradually been moving in
this direction in anticipation of such changes.
Larry Goodyer
Imogen Savage
Russell Greene
Anne Lovejoy
Alan Nathan
Sue Newby
Pharmacy Practice Group,
Department of Pharmacy,
King’s College London