Medicines use reviews data reveal English picture
Community pharmacists in England conducted 148,195 medicines use reviews and prescription interventions in 2005–06, data from the Government Statistical Service have revealed.
Commenting on the new figures, Sue Sharpe, chief executive of the Pharmaceutical
Services Negotiating Committee, said that the PSNC is expecting many
more pharmacies to provide advanced services in 2006–07 than did
in 2005–06.
“Experience has shown that there was a steady increase in numbers
of pharmacies providing the service through the year, and a strong growth
in the number
of MURs undertaken month by month,” she said.
However, the magnitude of change for pharmacies in providing these clinically
focused services must not be underestimated, Mrs Sharpe added. “The
new contractual framework provided the first major opportunity for any
community pharmacy to develop the services provided to the public. We
recognised that pharmacies would move at different speeds to incorporate
advanced services, and also that, for some, there would be significant
work to be done to comply with the essential service requirements in
the first year of the new contractual framework, before they embarked
on preparing for advanced services,” she said.
As well as demonstrating the effect of the changes brought about by the
new community pharmacy contract, the data also reveal the impact of the
reforms to the control of entry requirements introduced in April 2005.
They show that there were 429 applications in 2005–06 under the
four new exemptions: 300 for pharmacies intending to open for more than
100 hours a week, 74 for out-of-town developments over 15,000m2, 43 for
wholly mail order or internet-based pharmacy services and 12 for consortia
establishing a new one-stop primary care centre.
The success rate of these applications varied considerably for the different
exemptions, however: 56.0 per cent of applications for pharmacies opening
for more than 100 hours were granted, 74.3 per cent for developments
over 15,000m2 and 48.8 per cent for mail order or internet-based services,
but only 16.7 per cent of applications for one-stop primary care centres
were approved.
The data also show that the proportion of community pharmacies in a multiple
chain continues to increase. There were 195 more pharmacies in a chain
of six or more in 2005–06 than in 2004–05, increasing the
number from 5,409 to 5,604 and the proportion to 56.8 per cent. |
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