Scotland in limelight again
Once again, Scotland is stealing the pharmacy limelight and has successfully rolled out its minor ailment service to 176 community pharmacies (News
feature p115). This service, which will eventually be central to the
new core contract currently being negotiated for community pharmacists
in Scotland, serves a number of interlinked purposes.
For patients, the number one benefit must be convenience. For those patients
who are exempt from prescription charges, no longer do they have to make
an appointment to see their doctor if they need a simple analgesic. Doctors,
no longer having to see those patients for minor ailments, will be able,
in theory, to devote surgery time to more complicated clinical issues.
For pharmacists, there is the benefit of using their clinical skills
more fully as they are given more responsibility for patient care.
Why, then, has the introduction of similar services in England (and Wales)
effectively been given the thumbs-down? At present, minor ailment schemes
are not expected to be part of the core essential services in the new
community pharmacy contract in England and Wales. Instead, they will
be a “supplementary” service to be negotiated at a local
level. Although many pharmacists will aspire to providing such a service,
their primary care organisation may not commission it. The reason for
this is, according to many reports, an anxiety on the part of the Department
of Health (and the Treasury) that the service would cost too much money,
and the drugs budget would go through the roof as patients demand extra
medicines as they are so easily accessible.
Scotland seems to have put in a simple step that will make that hard:
patients have to register with a particular pharmacy in order to have
access to the service. One benefit of this is that any patient trying
to obtain excessive quantities of medicines should be intercepted. And,
if some are missed, surely the extra cost of a pack or two of aspirin
will be nothing compared to the savings of using all health professionals
appropriately?
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Lawyers bound to benefit
Now that the Save Our Society group is seeking
leave for a judicial review into the process adopted by the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society's Council in petitioning for a new Charter (p109), all members of the
Society need to ask themselves some questions. Here are a few for starters. What
outcome do they want at the end of this process and why? Is the outcome in the
majority of
members’ interests? What outcome will best serve the interests of pharmacists,
pharmacy and the public? What really matters?
The danger is, of course, that the outcome of this process will be a disappointment
to everyone — except, of course, the lawyers involved.
Correction
The leading article "Lawyers bound to benefit" referred to a judicial review being sought when it should have said an injunction. |
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Pharmaceutical Journal