The Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 267 No 7157 p80-
July 21, 2001

Where to go for help when you want to put Government policy into practice

www.pharmacyinthefuture.org.uk, which provides pharmacists with information about putting Government policy into practice was launched recently. With a confusing array of websites already available, why should this one be of particular interest?

Frances Thompson finds out

The website www.pharmacyinthefuture.org.uk has been set up by the Modernisation Board and task forces, together with invited members of a number of pharmacy organisations

The new website www.pharmacyinthefuture.org.uk aims to be an information source that will help all pharmacists put into practice the opportunities offered by the NHS Plan and by “Pharmacy in the future”.

Beth Taylor, a pharmacist who has been appointed on to the Modernisation Board and who has worked with a collaboration of pharmacy organisations to set up the website, told The Journal: “We set up the website because we saw a need for an easy reference and source of ideas for pharmacists in all sectors. Information on policy that some of us assume is getting through to all pharmacists often is not. I think that anything that makes it easier to gain access to such information and to respond to it is very important.” She explained that the site indicates where information can be found rather than supplying it comprehensively.

Colette McCreedy, director of pharmacy practice at the National Pharmaceutical Association agreed, saying that the future had been outlined in the pharmacy programme but that its delivery was up to the profession. “Pharmacists need help and support with this and the NPA hopes that the website will pull together the work being done by the organisations involved, and point the way to further information,” she said.

The website was set up after discussions between pharmacy members of the Modernisation Board and task forces and invited representatives of a number of pharmacy groups (see Panel below). The Department of Health accepted a proposal from the collaboration to set up the website and agreed to fund the first year of its operation. Future funding is still under discussion but Mrs Taylor says that, in principle, there is support in the longer term from all of the organisations involved.

Some sections of the website are already in place, but new ones will be added and existing sections expanded. When asked how the website would develop in the future, Mrs Taylor said that the collaboration would judge this by the number of visits to the various sections. “We have already had some feedback — we had over 500 hits in the first week. Soon, we will be able to see which sections of the site are the most used, and we will try to develop the areas that people are most interested in.”

Mrs Taylor acknowledged that putting policy into practice could be difficult and that it was not always easy to work out what the next move should be. For this reason, as well as providing access to relevant information on policy, the website will include examples of ways in which people have successfully changed practice. She added that the collaboration was keen to know about any other useful resources already available on the web that could be linked to www.pharmacyinthefuture.org.uk, and to learn about further examples of good practice.

The collaboration will co-ordinate the website as a whole but each of the organisations involved will be responsible for developing certain sections. For example, the NPA will be responsible for developing the “Access” section, which covers the various ways in which the Government is trying to make medicines more readily available to patients. Miss McCreedy said: “We are collating the access part of the site because it includes areas of practice in which the NPA is very much involved — NHS Direct, walk-in centres, self-medication, prescribing for minor ailments, out of hours, etc.”

Ian Simpson, professional secretary of the Guild of Healthcare Pharmacists told The Journal that his organisation would be responsible for the section dealing with coronary heart disease (CHD). “We hope to have two or three pharmacists who have expertise in the CHD field, who will volunteer to review and update that section of the site, and who will monitor what comes out of the CHD modernisation task force,” he said. He added that he hoped that people would send in examples of good practice that could be included in the website, where appropriate.

Sue Carter, chairman of the Primary Care Pharmacists’ Association, which has agreed to manage the diabetes and medicines management sections, described the website as “one of the few, if not only, sources of information that links all the different strands of Government and NHS policy, therapeutics, practice developments, and patient care together in a logical and user-friendly way”.

Mrs Taylor added: “If pharmacy is going to survive and thrive, pharmacists need to be looking at what changes they can make rather than having changes thrust upon them.”

Back to Top

Frances Thompson is on the staff of The Pharmaceutical Journal