The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 273 No 7307 p42
10 July 2004

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Health minister impressed by Sheffield pharmacies

Health minister Rosie Winterton said that she was impressed by the new services offered by pharmacists in Sheffield during a visit to the city last week.

“The pharmacies I have seen demonstrate a valuable range of possibilities for improving the accessibility and range of NHS pharmacy services in the community,” the minister said. “I am delighted that pharmacists in Sheffield have taken our modernising message to heart and I am impressed by the new services that they have developed for patients.”

Pharmacists in the city have been supported by Peter Magirr, who runs the Community Pharmacy Development Unit. The unit operates across the city and receives most of its funding from the four primary care trusts in Sheffield with a further contribution from the local pharmaceutical committee. “Much of the success is down to the excellent working relationships established between the city’s pharmacists and PCTs,” commented Dr Magirr.

One of the unit’s success stories is a minor ailments service that started as a pilot in February 2002 and is now offered by 63 of the 106 pharmacies in the city. Altogether, 10,000 patients have received treatment for minor ailments through the scheme, which is funded by all four PCTs in the city.

Other services include provision of sexual health advice and emergency contraception to teenagers, support for people wanting to stop smoking, and a drug misuse service. Pharmacy staff, rather than pharmacists, offer one-to-one support in the 12-week stop smoking service.

The development work is ongoing, and a new pilot project that has begun at five pharmacies allows patients on warfarin to have their INR (international normalised ratio) measured at the pharmacy instead of the hospital. Susie Coates, pharmacy development manager at the Community Pharmacy Development Unit, explained that this demonstrates the approach that has been taken with all the new services. “We have started small, seen how well the pilot works and then expanded the service to benefit patients,” she said.

Pharmacists in the city are also demonstrating good clinical governance through the Sheffield “commitment to quality” accreditation scheme. So far, 76 pharmacies are involved and 25 of these have achieved accreditation (PJ, 31 August 2002, p274).