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Chijioke Agomo, MSc, MRPharmS, is a locum community
pharmacist in London.
Gill Rowlands, MD, FRCGP, is director of the Institute of Primary
Care and Public Health.
Mark Ashworth, DM, MRCGP, is an honorary senior lecturer at King’s
College London School of Medicine.
Fiona Reid, MSc, is senior lecturer at St George’s department
of community health sciences, London.
Correspondence to: Professor Gill
Rowlands, Faculty of Health, London South Bank University, 103
Borough Road, London
SE1 0AA
e-mail: rowlang2@lsbu.ac.uk |
Abstract
Aim
To investigate current provision of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT)
by community pharmacists in Wandsworth Primary Care Trust.
Design
A descriptive, cross-sectional questionnaire survey.
Subjects and setting
All 62 community pharmacists in the Wandsworth PCT area, London.
Results
44 usable responses (71%) were collected. Most respondents (86%) were
involved in the management of NRT, and most of the NRT services provided
were PCT-funded
(71%). Lack of pharmacists’ freedom to prescribe NRT, the recruitment
of patients, high drop out rates and low quit rates were identified as
the main difficulties in the current pharmacy-based NRT schemes.
Conclusion
Because community pharmacists are in regular contact with patients, they
are strategically positioned to reduce the impact of smoking-related diseases.
However, for this to happen, pharmacists need to improve their recruitment
drive for patients, reduce the high drop out rates and improve the low
quit rates noticed in the schemes. Community pharmacists will need to change
the way they work and make their practice environment conducive for provision
of smoking cessation services. Pharmacists should be given the freedom
to prescribe NRT, whether or not they are trained as pharmacist prescribers.
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal