The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7224 p702
16 November 2002

This article
Reprint
Photocopy

News summary

Related websites
DoH: Pathology — the essential service (more)
National Pharmaceutical Association (www.npa.co.uk)

NPA sees pharmacy role in local pathology services

Community pharmacies have a role to play in the provision of primary care-based pathology services, according to the National Pharmaceutical Association.

The NPA is to urge the Department of Health to bear in mind the accessibility of community pharmacies and an evidence base which suggests that pharmacists can successfully provide diagnostic testing services in its plans to modernise National Health Service pathology services.

Pharmacy has not been mentioned at all in a consultation document on modernising pathology services and the NPA believes that this is a "curious" omission because the document says "it is vital for patients to get pathology services they need at the time and in the place they need them", that pathology services "can be carried out in new ways and new settings" and that "patients and staff need faster access to diagnostics in primary care".

At their October meeting, NPA board members concluded that community pharmacists should be integrated into local pathology networks. Point-of-care testing carried out in community pharmacies for NHS patients should be integrated into local NHS networks and work to the same standards. They were concerned that pharmacists could find themselves working to different standards if they were ignored in the pathology services modernisation programme.

Other matters considered at the board's October meeting are reported below:

Beconase Hayfever Opposition was voiced to the proposed reclassification of Beconase Hayfever as a general sale list medicine (PJ, 14 September, p349). Board members believed that labelling the product for adult use only would not stop it being bought for children and that labels saying that it should not be used for more than a month without professional advice would be ignored. They suggested that the reason the Medicines Control Agency was able to say that there had been no evidence of misuse of the product as a pharmacy medicine was that pharmacists had always dealt with it appropriately. It did not necessarily follow that there would be no misuse once it was generally available.

Sales promotions The Department of Trade and Industry has been asked to support an exemption for medicines in a European proposal to remove all restrictions on sales promotions. The European Parliament has already been persuaded to press for the exclusion of medicines from a draft regulation, which would be binding in its entirety on all European Union member states.

Overview and scrutiny committees The NPA wants all proposals for NHS one-stop centres to be examined by the local authority overview and scrutiny committees (OSCs) which are to examine NHS bodies and the services they provide, including local pharmaceutical services and pharmaceutical services. It also says that local pharmaceutical committees should be involved at all levels of the process and that OSCs should liaise with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's inspectorate to ensure that the committees do not replicate the inspectors' work. Board members believe that proposals to exclude plans to create or dissolve primary care trusts from such scrutiny are wrong because these could have a major impact on local services. There will be one OSC for every primary care trust.