The
Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 266 No 7132 p100-102
Minister calls for greater pharmacy integration into the NHS
£190,000 for medicines management in London
POD checks top LPCs’ agenda
Tories would make EHC POM
Society director to advise NHS
New EHC allegations by Daily Mail
Society statement to the Daily Mail
EHC booklets
New leaflet on medicines for elderly
Pharmacist chairman for Paisley LHCC
Pharmacists best equipped to meet health care challenges
Few HA complaints concern pharmacy
New start date for RPM case
APPG input into Health and Social care Bill
NPA board election
Council member misquoted
Lord Hunt (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health) has called for
greater integration of pharmacy with the National Health Service.
Speaking at a dinner hosted by Barking and Havering local pharmaceutical committee
and Redbridge and Waltham Forest LPC on January 18, Lord Hunt said: “This is
about unlocking the potential of community pharmacy and helping the enthusiasts
channel their enthusiasm. It is also about unlocking potential within the wider
National Health Service, being imaginative and breaking down barriers. Just
as you in the profession are seeing new ways to develop your skills, so the
wider NHS has got to recognise the contribution that you have to offer.”
Addressing comments to NHS representatives at the dinner, the Minister said
that the issue was not to develop pharmacy services as an end in themselves.
The issue was to identify what the NHS was trying to achieve and then to identify
the pharmacy role within that. This was a message that was to be given to health
authorities over the coming months as the pharmacy plan was implemented.
Lord Hunt said that it was clear that there was a wealth of talent, experience
and responsibility in the profession. It was his role, as the Minister responsible
for pharmacy, to make sure that this was used to the full.
The great potential for pharmacy was ideally demonstrated by the plan for medicines
management, the Minister said. Commenting on a multidisciplinary advisory group
that was to be created to oversee the national development of medicines management,
he added that the Government had learnt from the development of the NHS plan
that projects were more successful when people from the field were brought in
to advise on progress, than when they were based on theoretical writings from
Whitehall.
Turning to the role of LPCs, Lord Hunt said that he wanted strong, committed
LPCs with strong relationships with health authorities. If the programme for
the NHS was to become reality, pharmacy had to be at the top table at health
authority level. Pharmacists had to be involved with health improvement programmes
and their input was required into local health strategies. That was a key message
that would be transmitted to the NHS.
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The London regional office of the National Health Service Executive has allocated
£190,000 over two years from its development fund for the management and evaluation
of medicines management projects.
Announcing the money at a dinner hosted by Barking and Havering local pharmaceutical
committee and Redbridge and Waltham Forest LPC on January 18, Ms Sue Young (chairman,
Barking and Havering health authority) said that effective medicines management
was a key initiative which led to significant improvements in health when patients
were encouraged to take their medicines properly and continually. An important
by-product was cost savings that released money for further services.
Ms Young said that the NHS plan challenged all those involved with health care
to improve patient care, partnership, prevention and performance. The plan was
about developing a patient centred service that was tailored to meet individual
needs. Locally, partnership had entailed working hard with local community pharmacists
to raise their profile and to recognise how important they were to providing
accessible health care and information in the community.
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Checks by pharmacists on entitlement to prescription charge exemption are
to be debated at the local pharmaceutical committees’ conference on March 12.
Four motions on the subject have been submitted.
Liverpool LPC has taken the most hard-line stance and is calling for £10m paid
to contractors for checks to be sent back to the Department of Health with the
message “do it yourself”.
Two motions from St Helens and Knowsley LPC call for checks to be halted until
a new agreement can be negotiated and for the Department to be told that the
profession is no longer willing to take responsibility for the checks.
The PSNC has recommended that the three motions be rejected; the first because
it would reduce remuneration, the second because the arrangements were negotiated
before they were introduced, and the third because checks are now part of the
contractors’ terms of service.
The fourth motion on the subject, from Manchester LPC, urges the PSNC to negotiate
a realistic fee for POD checks.
Other motions for debate at the conference include a renewed call for a merger
between the PSNC and the National Pharmaceutical Association.
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The shadow health secretary (Dr Liam Fox) has said that a future Conservative
government would return emergency hormonal contraception to prescription control.
Dr Fox told the Nursing Standard for January 24: “The morning-after pill
should only be given within an environment where detailed professional advice
about further contraception and sexually transmitted diseases is readily available.
My worry is not about the ability of pharmacists but about whether the high
street chemist is the appropriate place for it to be given.” He said that the
logical professionals to give out the treatment would be practice nurses.
A spokeswoman for the Community Practitioners’ and Health Visitors’ Association
told the magazine that emergency contraception should continue to be available
over the counter.
“It is perfectly safe and gives women control over their own fertility. Having
it available only on prescription would just put women through a lot of unnecessary
hoops,” she said.
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The Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s director of public affairs (Ms Beverley
Parkin) has joined a Government task force.
Ms Parkin was asked to join a communications task force established by the National
Health Service modernisation board.
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In new allegations that pharmacists are making unlawful or inappropriate supplies
of emergency contraception, the Daily Mail has named community pharmacies
in London which it says sold Levonelle to a 15-year-old girl who asked for emergency
contraception. It has also named a pharmacy which allegedly sold the prescription
version, Levonelle-2, over the counter to the girl.
The allegations, in the newspaper’s January 20 issue, come two weeks after the
newspaper alleged that named pharmacies had supplied EHC to a girl in breach
of guidelines that restricted supply to young women aged 16 years and over.
In fact, the first supplies had been made under a patient group direction that
had no lower age limit (PJ, January 13, p40).
In its second investigation the Daily Mail seems to have been careful
to ensure that over-the-counter sale was sought.
The newspaper named two pharmacies which it says sold Levonelle without asking
the purchaser’s age. The consultation at one unnamed pharmacy is reported to
have comprised the simple question: “You know it costs £20?” Two further pharmacies
are reported to have told the girl that she was too young to buy the product
and referred her to a family planning clinic.
The newspaper says that the Department of Health has ordered the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society to launch an inquiry into the matter.
The Department is reported to have said of the pharmacist where Levonelle-2
was supplied: “Levonelle-2 is not licensed for over-the-counter sales. This
pharmacist committed an offence under the Medicines Act 1968. It is exactly
the same dose as the OTC drug, but it is marketed differently.”
The newspaper also reproduced a short extract from a statement
issued by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society.
The newspaper’s second investigation took place two weeks before the official
launch of Levonelle as an OTC medicine, which is due to take place on January
30, and a few days before pharmacists received official training material for
the supply of EHC. These materials were circulated with The Pharmaceutical
Journal on January 20. Professional standards and practice guidance were
published late last year (PJ, December 16, 2000, p890).
When the classification of Levonelle as a pharmacy medicine was announced, the
Department of Health warned pharmacists not to sell the prescription form, Levonelle-2,
because it would not meet the labelling regulations for pharmacy sale and would
not include the appropriate patient information leaflet (PJ, December
16, 2000, p872).
Comment, p99
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An emergency hormonal contraception information booklet was sent by the centres
for pharmacy postgraduate education to all pharmacists with The Journal
last week. Those addressed to community pharmacists in England should have contained
a response sheet and freepost envelope so that pharmacists could have their
multiple choice assessment marked. Pharmacists in England who did not receive
these and wish to have their assessments marked can obtain the response sheet
by e-mailing the Centre for Pharmacy Postgraduate Education at cppe@man.ac.uk
or by writing to the CPPE at Freepost (MR8920), School of Pharmacy, University
of Manchester, Manchester M13 9HJ stating their Royal Pharmaceutical Society
registration numbers, along with registered name and address. Completed sheets
for marking should be sent to CPPE, Edexcel CAPE MCQ Services, Freepost Lon
14279, London WC1H 9BR.
Pharmacists in England who did not receive the information booklet with The
Journal can also contact the CPPE to ask for one.
Pharmacists in Scotland can obtain the response sheet from, and return it to,
the Scottish Centre for Postqualification Pharmaceutical Education, Department
of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Strathclyde, 27 Taylor Street, Glasgow
G4 0NR (tel 0141 552 4400 ext 4274, e-mail scppe@strath.ac.uk).
Welsh pharmacists can contact the Welsh Centre for Postgraduate Pharmaceutical
Education, Cardiff University, 8 North Road, Cardiff CF10 3DY (tel 02920 874784,
e-mail welshcppe@cf.ac.uk.
Pharmacists in Northern Ireland should shortly be receiving mailings direct
from the Northern Ireland Centre for Postgraduate Pharmaceutical Education and
Training.
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A leaflet encouraging elderly patients to tell health professionals about
all the medicines they are taking when seeking treatment is to be distributed
through community pharmacies nation-wide.
The “Be clear about your medicines” leaflet accompanies a campaign backed by
the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, the National Pharmaceutical Association, the
Doctor Patient Partnership and Age Concern. The central themes of the campaign
are that patients should be careful about taking both non-prescription and prescription
medicines together and that if they have any concerns about managing their medicines
they should ask their pharmacists for advice.
The leaflet contains a section in which patients can list both their prescription
and non-prescription medicines. They are then encouraged to cut out this section
and show it to the pharmacist when buying medicines.
The campaign is to be officially launched by the Parliamentary Under-Secretary
of State for Health (Lord Hunt) on January 29.
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Pharmacists are probably better equipped than any other health professional
to meet the challenges currently faced by systems of health care, according
to Mr Martin Hill (chief executive, Lanarkshire Primary Care NHS trust and chairman
of the Scottish Executive’s local health care co-operative best practice reference
group).
Speaking at an LHCC pharmacists conference organised by the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society in Scotland on January 13, Mr Hill said that the objectives of the Scottish
National Health Service plan (improving health, rebuilding the NHS, improving
the patient’s journey through the NHS, involving people and working together
in partnership) set a number of challenges. The challenges were: for the whole
health care system to discriminate in favour of need and multi-agency working;
for LHCCs to attract investment and champion local health improvement; and for
pharmacists to improve clinical effectiveness, influence strategy and manage
drug costs.
Sharing power with patients and adopting a more patient orientated approach
were central to all three and it was these with which pharmacists were best
able to assist.
- From our Scottish correspondent.
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Just 12 out of 1,396 requests to health authorities for independent review
of how primary care contractors dealt with complaints by patients or their relatives
concerned pharmaceutical services in 1999-2000.
Of the 12 requests, four were referred to independent review panels, of which
two were found to be justified.
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The Office of Fair Trading is to restart its attempt to overturn resale price
maintenance on medicines on April 24. The new hearing will be before Mr Justice
Buckley and a panel of two lay assessors who are yet to be appointed.
The original hearing was stopped seven weeks after it began, because a lay assessor
compromised her independence.
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Six out of 20 members of Parliament who are to give detailed consideration to the Health and Social Care Bill during its committee stage are members of the All-Party Pharmacy Group. They are
Other members of the committee are
The chairman of the committee is Mr John Maxton (Lab, Glasgow Cathcart).
Philip Hammond is a signatory to an early-day motion which was to be debated
on January 24 and which sought to overturn the Prescription Only Medicines (Human
Use) Amendment (No 3) Order 2000, which made levonorgestrel a pharmacy medicine.
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Four long-standing members of the National Pharmaceutical Association’s board
of management are to stand down at the end of March. They are Mr Ben Zatland,
who is currently chairman of the NPA, Mr Gaz Clapinski, Mr Jeremy Clitherow
and Mr Peter Jenkins.
All other members of the current NPA board are seeking re-election.
Members of the NPA board are elected in a regional basis, with one member for
each region, apart from Wales, which elects two. Two Scottish members of the
NPA board are directly elected by the Scottish Pharmaceutical Federation.
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Dr Gillian Hawksworth, a Royal Pharmaceutical Society Council member who contributed
to a Guardian report on pharmacy last week (PJ, January 20, p70)
says that she was misquoted by the newspaper.
She told The Journal on January 19 that she had said that the community
pharmacy network could be lost if resale price maintenance on medicines were
to be stopped and not that community pharmacy could be lost.
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