Central role in primary care remains a long way off
There is a long way to go before a more central
role in primary care is created for community
pharmacists in England. So said
Under-Secretary of State for Care Services
Ivan Lewis in a Parliamentary debate last
week.
Responding to a Westminster Hall debate on primary care trusts, Mr Lewis said: “I suspect
that if we looked throughout the country,
we would find there was a patchiness — the new word — in the extent to which
PCTs put the role of community pharmacists
at the centre of their planning and commissioning.
I agree that we should think far more
seriously about it.”
Mr Lewis was responding to comments
made during the debate by chairman of the
All-Party Pharmacy Group Howard Stoate
(Lab Dartford), who wanted pharmacists to
have a greater strategic role in the management
of PCTs.
“At the moment it is quite rare to find
pharmacists involved in the decision-making
process at PCT level.As a result they lack any
real say in defining local health care and clinical
priorities,” said Dr Stoate.
He added that the mandatory appointment
of community pharmacists to PCT executive
committees would be a good way of
ensuring that the voice of pharmacy was
heard at executive level. Increased PCT liaison
with local pharmaceutical committees
would also ensure that PCTs made best use of
community pharmacists’ skills, he added.
“PCTs should be encouraged to commission
and properly fund new primary care
services from pharmacists,” Dr Stoate went
on. The Government should have made it
clear that it wanted community pharmacy to
play a key role in the delivery of primary care
services.
After the debate, the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society’s director of public affairs, Beverley
Parkin, commented: “It is important that
Parliament has heard that pharmacists need to
be more engaged in strategic decision-making
at local level and that the minister has acknowledged
that there are problems with
pharmacist involvement in service commissioning
in parts of the country.These are important
messages that we have been
communicating as part of our public affairs
programme but we want to see that, as well as
being heard, they will be acted on.”
As part of its public affairs programme, the
Society has been briefing MPs, ministers, special
advisers and other stakeholders on the
key issues for the future of primary care. On
3 July, the Society’s President, Hemant Patel,
gave oral evidence to a joint inquiry of the
all-party groups on primary care and public
health and on social care in which he highlighted
the role of community pharmacists in
supporting people with long-term conditions.
Mr Patel raised concerns that the move
to practice-based commissioning could undo
work to develop patient-focused services. “We believe that it is essential that community
pharmacists are actively involved in
practice-based commissioning and that action
should be taken to ensure that this occurs,” he
told the group.
Mr Patel called for better alignment of the
contracts for general practice and community
pharmacy, longer term, more sustainable contracts
for community pharmacy and proper
access to patient information to support new
services.
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