News summary

Call for national PGDs to be issued A Yorkshire community pharmacist, Martin Shakespeare, has called for patient group directions to be valid nationally, rather than locally, as at present...[more]

Sample patient group direction for nicotine replacement launched A sample patient group direction (PGD) for the supply of nicotine replacement therapy was launched on June 21 by the Pharmacy Healthcare Scheme...[more]

Pharmacy contracts to go to trusts Community pharmacy contracts are to be transferred from health authorities to primary care trusts, the Queen’s speech at the opening of parliament has confirmed...[more]

Hazel Blears is minister for pharmacy Hazel Blears, newly appointed under-secretary of state for health has had responsibility for pharmacy services included in her portfolio...[more including full details of ministerial responsibilities at the Department of Health]

Pharmacist awarded OBE Dr David Owen, MRPharmS, has been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s birthday honours for services to medical research and technology transfer...[more]

UK near bottom of EU health spending The United Kingdom comes 11th out of the 15 European Union countries for spending on health according to the latest Eurostat yearbook...[more]

New advisory body for Scottish chief pharmacist The Scottish Executive’s health department has set up a national pharmaceutical forum to advise its chief pharmaceutical officer, Bill Scott, on matters relating to pharmaceutical care and pharmacy services...[more]

More care needed with medicines, says Moss after consumer survey Many pharmacy customers are hoarding medicines, failing to read patient information leaflets, taking out-of-date products and being careless about the storage and disposal of medicines, according to a survey carried out by Moss Pharmacy...[more]

Lloyds breaks new ground Lloydspharmacy has broken new ground in the past month. Its has opened its first pharmacy co-located with a National Health Service walk-in centre (also its first on hospital premises) and its first instore pharmacy within a Somerfield supermarket...[more]

NEWS IN BRIEF

Health brief for Gidley Sandra Gidley, the pharmacist Liberal Democrat member of parliament for Romsey, Hampshire, has been made the LibDem’s deputy spokeswoman for health and women’s issues.

Modernisation website A website to help pharmacists implement the Government’s National Health Service plan and its associated pharmacy programme went live on June 21. The website, hosted by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, is funded by the Department of Health. It can be found at www.pharmacyinthefuture.org.uk.

Educational website An educational website intended for community pharmacists has been launched by IDIS World Medicines. The website, at www.idis.co.uk, currently has only one programme, on paediatric medicines, but IDIS hopes to add a new programme each month. All modules are to be accredited by the College of Pharmacy Practice.

Nigerian substandard medicines Forty-eight per cent of medicines in Nigeria have been found to be substandard (Lancet, June 16, p1933). The failing is attributed to inadequate quality control rather than intent to deceive. In the same issue (p1948), 29 per cent of samples of an antimalarial bought in southeast Asia contained no active ingredient and 38 per cent were counterfeit.

Call for national PGDs to be issued

A Yorkshire community pharmacist, Martin Shakespeare, has called for patient group directions to be valid nationally, rather than locally, as at present.

Currently, health authorities and primary care groups and trusts are developing PGDs for use in their own areas by trained and accredited pharmacists. The problem that Mr Shakespeare sees is that people cross boundaries. This means that pharmacists who move from one part of the country to another and locums, who work in different places, can find that they are qualified to provide a service in one place one day, but cannot provide the identical service the next. Equally, patients may be able to get one service where they live, while the same service is not available where they work or when they go on holiday.

Mr Shakespeare says: “If we go ahead with the system as it stands we will produce what the government says it does not want, which is inequalities in the National Health Service. It would be possible to resolve many of the problems, and generate savings of time and effort, by imposing on all authorities the best available PGDs. They could also be harmonised with existing arrangements for walk in-centres, rather than having the current ad hoc, piecemeal, and inconsistent approach.”

The problem could be solved by producing a national service framework for primary care pharmacy, Mr Shakespeare says.

“Incorporation of a short list of the most pertinent PGDs in an NSF for pharmacy, would allow national negotiation of those PGDs where the professional opinion of bacteriologists or other practitioners locally is likely to differ. The importance of PGDs for antibiotic preparations such as chloramphenicol eye-drops or short course trimethoprim is surely too great to be left to chance.”

Including a standard set of PGDs in an NSF would also mean that training for them could be built into the undergraduate pharmacy course and into continuing professional development programmes for all pharmacists.

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Sample patient group direction for nicotine replacement launched

A sample patient group direction (PGD) for the supply of nicotine replacement therapy was launched on June 21 by the Pharmacy Healthcare Scheme (PHS).

The sample PGD provides a template from which local PGDs can be drawn up. It can be used where NHS commissioning bodies want to replace existing NRT voucher schemes or to permit the supply of NRT outside current product licences, for example to people aged under 18 years, pregnant women or patients with cardiovascular disease. The protocol is applicable to all nicotine replacement products on the market.

Yve Buckland, chair of the PHS, said that the PGD had considerable support from bodies such as the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Nursing. “This initiative is an important mechanism to increase the public’s access to NRT now that it is available on NHS prescription and the existing voucher scheme is being phased out,” she added.

Professor John Britton of the Tobacco Advisory Group of the Royal College of Physicians, said: “It will ensure patients can go straight from NHS smoking cessation services to the pharmacy to pick up their supply without having to go via their GP.”

He added: “We support the supply of NRT to groups of patients who are at high risk of smoking-related illnesses but who are not always covered by the product licence, such as pregnant women and patients with cardiovascular diseases. For these groups, the health risk of continued smoking outweigh the health risk of using NRT which is a considerably safer product than tobacco.”

Copies of the PGD can be obtained from Anna Pinheiro at the PHS (tel 020 7820 3213, e-mail phs@rpsgb.org.uk). The PGD will also available on the internet at www.rpsgb.org.uk/patientcare/ and www.groupprotocols.org.uk.

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Pharmacy contracts to go to trusts

Community pharmacy contracts are to be transferred from health authorities to primary care trusts, the Queen’s speech at the opening of parliament has confirmed (our Lobby correspondent writes). A National Health Service reform and decentralisation bill will similarly devolve responsibility for general practice, dental and optical services to the trusts, which ministers believe are best placed to commission services for local people.

The bill will abolish community health councils. Instead, elected local bodies, acting through new scrutiny and oversight committees will examine local health services and will get an exclusive right to refer contested service changes to a new National Configuration Panel. Overall, the bill will see power passed from Whitehall to frontline NHS organisations through structural and funding devolution. The bill will empower those responsible for providing local services to shape them in a way that they see fit within a national framework.

Other measures will put 75 per cent of NHS spending power in the hands of frontline professionals, and reform professional regulation and the way appeals from decisions of regulatory bodies are handled.

See leading article

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Hazel Blears is minister for pharmacy

Hazel Blears, newly appointed under-secretary of state for health has had responsibility for pharmacy services included in her portfolio. She takes over this responsibility from Lord Hunt, who has retained responsibility for medicines and the pharmaceutical industry.

The full list of responsibilities is:

Alan Milburn, Secretary of State for Health
Overall responsibility for the work of the department with particular responsibility for finance and resources, the private finance initiative and strategic communications.

John Hutton, Minister of State for Health

• The NHS and delivery
• NHS human resources including the workforce taskforce
• Access to services including the waiting and access taskforce
• Commissioning
• Capital, including the capital and capacity task force
• Primary care services
• NHS treatment for asylum seekers
• Equality
• London regional office

Jacqui Smith, minister of state

• Social care, long term care, disability and mental health
• Long term care for the elderly, including the older people’s taskforce and nursing and residential care
• Intermediate Care
• Children’s social care
• General personal social services
• Care trusts
• Mental health services, including the mental health taskforce
• Prison health services
• Long term conditions, including the long term conditions national service framework, diabetes and renal services
• Disability services, including community equipment services
• Northern and Yorkshire region

Lord Hunt, parliamentary under-secretary of state

• Performance and quality
• NHS performance management, including the performance taskforce
• Clinical quality, including the quality taskforce
• Medicines and medical devices
• Genetics and biotechnology
• R&D, statistics, IT
• Executive agency management
• Departmental management
• Eastern and North West regions

Yvette Cooper MP, parliamentary under-secretary of state for public health

• Public health
• Public health protection and prevention
• Cancer, including the cancer taskforce
• Coronary heart disease and stroke, including the CHD taskforce
• Tobacco
• Health inequalities including the inequalities taskforce
• Embryology
• Maternity
• Sure Start
• Children’s health, including the children’s taskforce
• Sexual health and HIV, AIDS
• Blood
• Teenage pregnancy
• International health business
• Food Standards Agency
• BSE and vCJD
• Complementary and alternative medicine
• Trent and West Midlands regions

Hazel Blears, parliamentary under-secretary of state for health

• Emergency care and public involvement
• Emergency care including winter planning and NHS Direct
• Patients focus including community health councils, complaints, clinical negligence, organ retention, the hospital environment and the patient and public involvement taskforce
• Health action zones
• Pharmacy services
• Optical services
• Dental services/flouridation
• Drugs/alcohol/crime
• Reconfiguration policy
• NHS Plus/occupational health
• Appointments
• Road Traffic Act
• Defence Medical Services
• South East and South West regions

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Pharmacist awarded OBE

Dr David Owen, MRPharmS, has been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s birthday honours for services to medical research and technology transfer. Dr Owen is chief executive officer of Medical Research Council Technology, responsible for ensuring that suitable technology from MRC institutes and units is developed either via licensing to existing companies or through the creation of new technology-driven companies.

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UK near bottom of EU health spending

The United Kingdom comes 11th out of the 15 European Union countries for spending on health according to the latest Eurostat yearbook, published by the statistical office of the European Communities.

Measured in terms of purchasing power standard, an artificial currency which takes account of differences in price levels, the UK spent 1,461 per person in 1998 — 82 per cent of the European average level of 1,768. Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece were below the UK. Top of the group was Germany with a spend of 2,424. On the same scale, the United States spends 4,178. Total health expenditure covers current expenditure on health care, consultations and medicines plus investment and related expenditure on medical research and training.

Eurostat Yearbook 2001, Eurostat, BECH Building, L-2920 Luxembourg (fax 00 352 4301 35 349). ISBN 92-894-0464-7, price euro40.

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New advisory body for Scottish chief pharmacist

The Scottish Executive’s health department has set up a national pharmaceutical forum to advise its chief pharmaceutical officer, Bill Scott, on matters relating to pharmaceutical care and pharmacy services.

The new body, chaired by Rose Marie Parr, director of the Scottish Centre for Postqualification Pharmaceutical Education, comprises 11 members and replaces the National Pharmaceutical Advisory Committee.

This change is seen as an attempt to upgrade the advisory committee to ensure that it fits with a new way of working within the department and is in line with the modernisation agenda.

Initially, the group intends to focus its attention on the Scottish plan for the National Health Service, the new Scottish telephone patient advice service NHS 24 and the role of community pharmacists in the context of the extended system of primary care.

The forum will be supported in its work by a core group of specialist advisers to ensure that important areas of interest are addressed.

The first joint meeting of the forum and its specialist advisers, chaired by Ms Parr, took place in Dundee on June 12.

After the meeting Mr Scott said that members of the Scottish parliament were asking 10 times as many questions on pharmacy related matters as their Westminster colleagues.

He said that it was vital for pharmacists to be in a position to provide information in support of their professional activities whenever the opportunity arose.

He added that he was always prepared to listen to pharmacists’ concerns and promised to take on board comments about a lack of resources and manpower.

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More care needed with medicines, says Moss after consumer survey

Many pharmacy customers are hoarding medicines, failing to read patient information leaflets, taking out-of-date products and being careless about the storage and disposal of medicines, according to a survey carried out by Moss Pharmacy.

The survey of 500 customers found that nearly a quarter of men had taken medicines prescribed for someone else and 18 per cent of responders had recommended their own prescribed medicines to family or friends. A third had not bothered to read the patient information leaflet.

Moss says that Britain is a nation of medicine hoarders. The survey found that 17 per cent ignored use-by dates and more than half kept medicines in either kitchens or bathrooms where they could be affected by warm, steamy conditions. Nearly half disposed of unwanted medicines in their household rubbish or through the sewage system.

Moss is to run a medicines amnesty and disposal scheme through its branches in July with window posters to promote the service. A fact sheet on medicines safety will be available for customers.

The survey also asked about problems with medicines when on holiday. The items most commonly forgotten when going away were diarrhoea treatments, asthma inhalers, insect bite treatments and antihistamines. Only half of those surveyed had taken a first aid kit on holiday and two-thirds of those had not checked the expiry dates of its contents.

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Lloyds breaks new ground

Lloydspharmacy has broken new ground in the past month. Its has opened its first pharmacy co-located with a National Health Service walk-in centre (also its first on hospital premises) and its first instore pharmacy within a Somerfield supermarket.

The first hospital-based Lloyds branch is at Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral, Merseyside. The pharmacy is alongside the accident and emergency department, the walk-in centre and an out-of-hours doctors co-operative. The pharmacy has a dispensing contract and will be open from 7.30am to 10pm on weekdays and 9am to 10pm at weekends. Julian Hickman, Lloydspharmacy’s north-west regional manager says. “We see the branch as a research project on future roles for pharmacists.”

Somerfield’s supermarket at Woolwich, south London, now has the first full instore pharmacy developed between the two companies.

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