Medicines management has nothing to do with medicines
Medicines management has nothing to do with medicines
and everything
to do with management, according to Dr Darrin Baines, director, medM Ltd.
“In the future, if you want to be involved in medicines management, you
are going to become a manager and not a pharmacist.”
Dr Baines, speaking on 8 October, predicted that
in three years’ time, national medicines management projects will no longer
exist and everyone will be talking about local contracting for pharmacy
services. All pharmaceutical care in the National Health Service will
be provided under local pharmaceutical services (LPS) contracts. Pharmacy
services will be based upon local contracts and it will be unlikely that
pharmacists will be paid a dispensing fee, he said. He added that pharmacy
undergraduates will need to have training on negotiating a pharmacy contract
incorporated into their courses.
In terms of the types of service pharmacists will
be providing, Dr Baines said that if pharmacists decide to become involved
in medicines management, the first thing that they will have to do is
move from a “demand led” service to a “rationing” service. At the moment,
community pharmacists do not rationalise pharmaceutical care because every
prescription that turns up in the pharmacy is dispensed.
Under the umbrella of medicines management, pharmacists
will no longer be involved in the dispensing process, but involved in
providing services to consumers. He added: “The key issue in medicines
management is not who you treat but who you are ignoring in order to treat
the patient in front of you.”
He also said that local pharmaceutical services
schemes will be introduced in waves and in five years time 60 per cent
of community pharmacists will be involved with LPS pilots. “Medicines
management is just the latest trend in the provision of pharmaceutical
care,” he added. “Most people in the NHS have not heard of medicines management,
and most people in the NHS just do not care.”
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