Society to develop strategy on long-term conditions and self-care
A strategy on long-term conditions (LTCs) in community pharmacy is to be developed for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. That was agreed by the Council after it considered a paper at the December
Council
meeting.
The paper reported on research offering evidence that community pharmacy
could have an impact in the care of people with asthma, diabetes and
coronary heart disease but were rarely involved in such care. Reasons
for the lack of involvement had been explored through interviews with
stakeholders. It had been found, among other things, that GPs were not
aware of pharmacists’ potential, were doubtful about their abilities
and saw progress for pharmacy as a risk. Other barriers to progress included
pharmacists’ lack of access to information and their failure to
sell the benefits of community pharmacy to patients.
The report recommended actively disseminating the findings of the LTCs
project, involving pharmacy in local level discussions on commissioning,
creating an accessible evidence base to demonstrate community pharmacy’s
contribution (with links to key NHS targets), using marketing and publicity
to raise awareness of what pharmacists can do (based on evidence), identifying
service brokers, mentors and facilitators to link up providers and commissioners, “skilling
up” and providing tools for local community pharmacy champions,
and developing a model service specification for one LTC, including a
patient care pathway.
The Council noted the research findings and endorsed the report’s
recommendations. It agreed to the development of an LTCs and self-care
strategy and the setting-up of a task force on LTCs and pharmacy. It
also agreed to appoint a Council sponsor for the work.
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The
Pharmaceutical Journal