| In 2006, pharmacists became, in the words of The Daily Mail, “super-chemists” as
a framework for the establishment of pharmacists with special interests
was launched (PJ, 9 September, p299). Andy Burnham became the eighth
minister to have responsibility for pharmacy affairs since the Labour
Party came to power in 1997 (PJ, 13 May, p555). Boots Group and Alliance
UniChem became the Alliance Boots group (PJ, 5 August, p151). And, although
none had qualified by the end of the year, pharmacists became legally
allowed to prescribe independently (PJ, 6 May, p523).
Oxygen
The year had barely begun when pharmacy was dragged into the news by
the debacle over the handover of the home oxygen service (PJ, 11 February,
p155).
As inadequate preparations and over-confidence in support systems put
patient safety at risk, pharmacists were the only real heroes in newspapers’ coverage.
Their response to the crisis was described as “tremendous” by
MPs, but repeated calls to allow them to continue to provide the service
went unheeded.
Problems were compounded by an underestimation of the number of patients
to be transferred — by July the new regional suppliers were supplying
75,000 home oxygen patients in England, when the Department of Health
had estimated there were only 60,000.
The handover of patients dragged on through the year. A transition period
from February to August, which regional suppliers said had always been
planned (though others disputed this), came and went and cylinders continued
to be supplied to pharmacies into December. Supply chain
As well as losing the home oxygen service, community pharmacists also
faced financial uncertainty later in the year when manufacturers announced
plans to change their distribution arrangements.
In October Pfizer revealed that, from March 2007, UniChem would act
as its sole distributor in the UK (PJ, 7 October, p413). The move outraged
community pharmacy bodies and, although Pfizer said the changes were
designed to secure the supply chain against counterfeit medicines, many
doubted the company’s motives. Nonetheless, Pfizer was not alone
in contemplating changes to its supply chain — in December, AstraZeneca,
Lilly UK and Novartis all confirmed that they were also examining their
distribution arrangements and considering making changes to them (PJ,
16 December, p725).
Scottish contract
The introduction of a minor ailment service marked the beginning of
Scotland’s
new community pharmacy contract on 1 July (PJ, 1 July, p5). For the first
time the public had to register with a pharmacy to receive an NHS service
and, ahead of the service’s introduction, over 250,000 patients
had done so.
Scotland was able to move ahead with such clinical services by rejecting
a volume-based funding structure, Frank Owens, then chairman of the Scottish
Pharmaceutical General Council, said just before the contract’s
introduction. “Scotland is, without doubt, at the forefront of
pharmacist prescribing, not just across the UK but perhaps even globally,” he
said. “None of this would have happened, I believe, if we had not
had the courage to move away from an individual payment per item based
contract.” Regulation
The profession as a whole faced a barrage of regulatory developments
in 2006. Changes were made to the prescribing and dispensing of Controlled
Drugs in April and legislation to underpin changes came into effect
on 7 July in a staged process across England, Scotland and Wales (PJ,
18 March, p307, and 19 June, p709).
Details about the long-delayed Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians
Order — made
under Section 60 of the Health Act 1999 and set to repeal the Pharmacy
Act 1954 — were published in April and the draft order itself was
published as a draft Statutory Instrument in December (PJ, 1 April, p371 and this issue, p759).
There was disappointment that the proposals failed to provide a GB-wide
regulatory system for pharmacy technicians and this remained the case
in the draft Order.
The Society was concerned that April’s draft did not line up closely
enough with the Society’s Charter, but the final draft included
a number of the alterations requested by the Society’s Council
(PJ, 17 June, p707).
One such change was to the definition of pharmacy or pharmacy technician
practice. This will now include working in or giving any advice in relation
to the practice of pharmacy. Another is that GB-registered pharmacists
who work overseas will be able to be on the non-practising part of the
Society’s
register.
However, all other regulatory changes this
year were overshadowed by
Andrew Foster’s and Sir Liam Donaldson’s reviews of health
care regulation (PJ, 22 July, p91), looking at non-medical and medical
regulation,
respectively.
The two reviews called for far-reaching changes to regulatory bodies
and their operations in order to introduce consistency of regulation
and increase public confidence.
Mr Foster’s report on non-medical regulation called for the Society
to merge with the Pharmaceutical Society of Northern Ireland and to separate
clearly its regulatory and professional leadership functions.
The PSNI was unconvinced that a merger would benefit patient care (PJ,
21 October, p469) and the need to separate its regulatory and professional
leadership functions was no less contentious.
Keith Ridge and Bill Scott, the chief pharmaceutical officers of England
and Scotland, respectively, both argued that professional leadership
and regulatory roles do not need to sit in the same body.
The National Pharmacy Association and the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating
Committee argued that there should be a split in the Society’s
professional and regulatory roles (PJ, 9 September, p299, and 18 November,
p595). And in December the Society decided to launch an independent review
to look into how best to separate these functions (PJ, 16 December, p723).
The review group is expected to publish a progress report in March 2007
and complete the initial stage of its review by next summer.
Future
Questions about where the profession should be heading were also asked
this year by the Society and the All-Party Pharmacy Group. The Society
launched Pharmacy 2020, seeking to identify the challenges and drivers
that affect the profession’s ability to fulfil its potential
in health care provision, to identify good practice in pharmacy and
to prepare a strategy to take pharmacy to the year 2020 (PJ, 26 August,
p260).
The All-Party Pharmacy Group launched its inquiry into the future of
pharmacy in response to its concerns that insufficient consideration
has been given to how pharmacy should develop its contribution to health
care (PJ, 24 June, p739).
The APPG’s evidence sessions provided some tough lessons for the
profession as the group heard how public perceptions of pharmacy need
to be brought up to date, how insufficient co-operation between GPs and
pharmacists threatens service improvements, how evidence of the benefits
of pharmacy-based services is needed and how the quality of continuing
education has to improve.
It may have been a busy year, but there is still a lot to do in 2007. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal