Push for enhanced services “must come from you”, pharmacists told
Now is the time to push enhanced services, Andy Burnham, minister of state for delivery and quality, told participants at the 2006 British
Pharmaceutical Conference in Manchester this week (see p309). He encouraged
pharmacists to work locally with their primary care trusts and others
to take the debate forward.
Mr Burnham argued that pressure on primary care trusts to commission
enhanced services from pharmacies has to come from the bottom up as well
as the top down in order to make changes happen. “What we are trying
to get away from in the NHS is that it is a top down service. Change
should be locally driven.”
Although he acknowledged that uptake of local enhanced services is patchy
and needs to improve, the minister said that he was encouraged by recently
published research indicating that primary care organisations will be
commissioning further enhanced services from community pharmacies over
the coming 12 months. “At departmental level, I would certainly
like to keep the dialogue with PCTs and strategic health authorities
[open] to ensure we see those welcome trends continuing,” he said.
He also acknowledged that PCT reorganisation will not have helped to
take things forward, but said: “I think that we do now have PCTs
of a certain size ready to move on and make some demonstrable changes
in their local community,” he said.
In a stark warning to pharmacists, he added: “Now is the time to
push that agenda further. We have not put these provisions in place for
nothing. We want to see more enhanced services being delivered. We have
seen the beginnings of it, but we need to push it if we want to see it
move as quickly as we would like.” |
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