The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7189 p349-354
16 March 2002

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Drug misuse report excludes pharmacy

An Audit Commission report examining drug misuse treatment services barely mentions the role that pharmacists play. This has led to concerns that funding for pharmacy-based services might be threatened.

The report, "Changing habits: the commissioning and management of drug treatment services for adults", calls for the delivery of local services to be improved. It identifies problems with current services provided by community-based drug teams, general practitioners, drug dependency units and other providers. However, no details are given about the role of pharmacists in both supervised consumption of methadone and harm minimisation.

Sara Kulay, one of the report's authors, told The Journal that a number of pharmacists were interviewed by the Audit Commission. However, the findings were not included in the final report because "we had a lot more information than we could fit in". In general, pharmacists interviewed had wanted to play a role in drug misuse. She identified the four-way agreement (see PJ, 21 April 2001, p547) as a good example of pharmacist involvement (PDF* 125K).

Marion Walker, primary care substance misuse services co-ordinator, Berkshire Healthcare NHS Trust, told The Journal that she was "extremely concerned" by the fact that pharmacists appeared to have been excluded from the report. "Pharmacists have been proactive in ensuring that they are providing a high quality, consistent service as part of the shared care of drug misusers through needle exchange schemes, supervised consumption schemes, providing health promotion as well as dispensing methadone and buprenorphine prescriptions on a daily basis," she said.

She added: "The Audit Commission report will no doubt become an important reference point for commissioners of drug treatment services and drug action teams. By not including pharmacists this will in effect exclude them from any future funding proposals. This will in turn result in a withdrawal of pharmacists from services for drug misusers."

The report is available here or can be ordered from Audit Commission Publications, tel 0800 502030, price £30.

  * PDF files on PJ Online require Acrobat Reader 4 or later.