Profession should control PCT budget for pharmacy
Rosie Winterton, pictured with Nicholas Wood, wants better use of
pharmacists |
Penalising primary care trusts for failing to listen to pharmacists and allowing the profession to take over control of community pharmacy budgets were some of the radical suggestions made to health minister Rosie Winterton about the future of the profession this week.
The ideas were put forward by pharmacists during a debate about future
pharmacy policy held at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s headquarters
in London as part of the Labour Party’s national public consultation
exercise the “Big Conversation” which will help inform future
party policy.
Other suggestions included permitting community pharmacies in rural areas
to close for a couple of hours to allow pharmacists to take on new roles
in the community and offering pharmacists in deprived areas incentives
to take on extended roles.
Launching the debate, President of the Society Nicholas Wood said: “Pharmacists
are now very much involved in the planning and implementation of the
national and local health economy. We want to deliver and show you, the
Society, and its members, that we have a wealth of experience and ideas
that we can bring to the formation of future health care policy.”
Ms Winterton told the invited audience that she was there to listen to
what the profession had to say and not to dictate. The important decision
that now needed to be taken was how to spend the extra £90bn per
year being invested in the NHS. She said that she wanted to see better
use of pharmacists in out-of-hours services and walk-in centres and the
breaking down of more professional barriers.
This was already happening in primary care where pharmacists, working
with GPs, were taking on supplementary prescribing and the responsibility
for repeat prescribing, she said.
“If we are going to meet the public expectation then we have to
make the best use of people’s potential and skills throughout the
health service — that applies as much to you as it does to anybody
else.
“If the ‘choice agenda’ becomes something that only
white middle class people can take advantage of then we will have failed.”
She added: “This has to be something that everybody in society
can benefit from, that they can feel that there is real improvement in
the NHS which matches the extra investment.”
Chairman of the parliamentary All Party Pharmacy Group, Labour MP Howard
Stoate, praised the audience for focusing on improving patient services
and better delivery of services.
Speaking as a GP he told the audience: “If you take chronic disease
management and medicines concordance [from GPs] we can get on with what
we are good at and it would be a genuine step change in the way primary
care services are delivered.” |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
Acrobat
Reader