The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 269 No 7229 p878
21/28 December 2002

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Pharmacists should make PCTs aware of what they can deliver, says minister

Community pharmacists should be pushing on the doors of primary care trusts with their projects for delivering the Government's health care agenda, according to junior health minister David Lammy.

Speaking at an All-Party Pharmacy Group meeting on 11 December, Mr Lammy said that pharmacy is crucial to delivering much of the agenda, and if pharmacists meet resistance from their PCTs, they should report back to the Department of Health.

On the community pharmacy contract, Mr Lammy said that NHS payments to pharmacists need to be taken seriously and looked at closely. The national contract is a leftover from a past agenda, and with the need to localise pharmacy provision it has become a handicap. The right payment mechanism is fundamental to ensuring that pharmacists play a bigger part in the NHS, but the mechanism will have to be reformed carefully because other issues must also be considered.

On the pharmacy workforce, Mr Lammy said that the Department's skill mix project is fundamentally important. All pharmacy staff should be fully engaged and their skills fully used in a more flexible way.

Mr Lammy warned that supplementary prescribing by pharmacists will not happen overnight. Pharmacists based in general practice surgeries should be the first to embark on prescribing, he suggested, because the relationship with the GP is important at a time of change in the NHS.

On information technology, he said that IT offers tremendous challenges throughout the NHS — not just for pharmacy — but there is a long way to go, and other important issues need to be tackled before the NHS can move on with IT.

During a question session, Hemant Patel, a member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society's Council, said that community pharmacists have been putting their case locally for years, but in his experience every proposal is blocked on the ground that it will increase the drugs budget. PCTs need to be given direction. Another Council member, Andrew Burr, said that his PCT has told him that no money is available for pharmacy because the GPs are out of pocket — even though pharmacy can provide services that help GPs save money.

Mr Lammy said that the PCTs are where the agenda is. He would find a way to encourage them to take pharmacy's proposals seriously.