The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7208 p124
27 July 2002

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Fife Health Board (more)

Fife to encourage patient registration at pharmacies

Fife Health Board is to encourage patients on long-term medication to register with a pharmacy of their choice as one of its priorities for implementing the Scottish pharmaceutical care strategy.

Marion Bennie, consultant in pharmaceutical public health, Fife Health Board, told The Journal that a group of senior pharmacists in Fife had been involved for some time in developing its own pharmacy strategy for the area. The group's work started in 2000 and involved focus group work with members of the public and consultations with health care professionals.

The Fife strategy identified 24 priorities for implementation, five of which are expected to come about as part of the national plan. Mrs Bennie expects patient registration to happen as a consequence of extending the trial of a repeat dispensing service currently running in the health board area.

"We did not have any negative reaction to [patient registration] when we discussed it in our focus groups. Patients are supportive when the benefits of regular contact with a single pharmacist are explained," she said. During the focus group work most people had indicated that they used the same pharmacy regularly by choice. She added that implementing supplementary prescribing would also increase the need for patients to see the same pharmacist on a regular basis.

Another priority area will be to increase the number of preregistration trainees in the area, particularly in hospitals where there are currently no trainees. Mrs Bennie said that establishing split preregistration training posts between hospital and community pharmacies would probably be the way the board would move forward.

Following the publication of the Scottish plan earlier this year (PJ, 9 February, p161), the results of the group's work were presented to the health board to illustrate how the national strategy could be implemented locally in line with what the public wanted.