Meetings

Young Pharmacists' Group

As patient choice grows, so do the opportunities and risks for pharmacists. Matthew Wright (on the staff of The Journal) reports on a Young Pharmacists’ Group conference

The Young Pharmacists’ Group conference “Twenty twenty vision”, celebrating 20 years of the YPG, took place at the International Conference Centre in Birmingham on 25–26 February

Patient choice is an opportunity — and a threat

How the concept of greater choice for patients could impact on business opportunities for pharmacists — particularly in the context of the new contract — was discussed by Mark Todd, Member of Parliament and secretary of the All Party Pharmacy Group.

“Choice is a driver of innovation,” Mr Todd said. “It forces people to think afresh about their relationship with the customer and think about how they better serve that person’s interest. But it is a challenge because in the health care professions, most of these channels between the patient and the supplier have been pretty firmly established by habit or even regulation.”

Mr Todd said that pharmacists were going to see an increasingly fluid environment in which customers will make their own choices. “This will be a challenge to business people in [the pharmacy] profession to look at new ways to supply a greater share of the market.”

However, Mr Todd also added that the opportunities offered by consumer choice have threats inherently associated with them. For example, with the roll-out of electronic prescriptions there will be an “an opportunity for pharmacists in establishing clear relationships with GPs so that a prescription is delivered straight to the pharmacist for supply to the patient”, but also a risk because the patient could elect to have it delivered to a more convenient location — for example, their workplace — which could “break some of the established links between a GP and a pharmacist as well”, he said.

Sue Sharpe, chief executive of the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee said that pharmacists need to do more to foster people’s understanding of the value of pharmacy services.

“It is being driven,” she said, “by choice and what we need to do is make sure that we give the community, give the public, the confidence to make the choice that will lead to developing the role of the profession.”

Mrs Sharpe spoke positively about pharmacy’s representation in the White Paper “Our health, our care, our say”.

“It is tremendous, to my mind, that we’ve got to the position of pharmacists being seen as full health care providers, along with doctors and nurses,” Mrs Sharpe said.