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SUMMARY
Having seen the foundations for change firmly laid in previous years,
pharmacists across Britain were charged with getting on with the job
in 2006.
In England and Wales, medicines use
reviews allowed community pharmacists to make a greater contribution
to the clinical management of their patients, and the publication of
template specifications for enhanced services helped ease negotiations
with commissioners, leading to almost 18,000 locally agreed enhanced
services being delivered under the contract before the year was out.
A significant step in the delivery of clinical services through pharmacies
came when Scotland’s new community pharmacy contract began on 1
July 2006 and pharmacists were able to offer consultations through the
minor ailment service. From June, customers wanting
to make use of the service were able to register with the pharmacy of
their choice — the first time the public had had to register with
a pharmacy to receive a national NHS service.
In Wales, there were moves to develop clinical practice when independent
prescribing by pharmacists was given the go-ahead. Meanwhile, pharmacist
supplementary prescribers across Britain were getting on with the task
in hand and, by the end of the year, were
able to start their transition to independent prescriber status when
the first two conversion courses were approved by the Royal Pharmaceutical
Society.
Pharmacists wanting to specialise in a particular clinical area were
given another boost in September with the launch of a national framework
for pharmacists with special interests.
Although not directly related to the provision of clinical services,
the reorganisation of primary care trusts across England caused some
concern for the profession with fears that clinical engagement could
be lost if PCTs relied too heavily on practice-based commissioning for
clinical involvement. The launch of a review
of professional executive committees followed later in the year and gave
pharmacy the
opportunity to put its case forward on how PECs should be shaped in the
future.
In terms of new medicines, more than 20 were launched in 2006, with some
genuine innovations among the batch. The first
preventive therapy for cervical cancer was
delivered by Sanofi Pasteur MSD and Pfizer brought an inhaled insulin
product to the market.
Full article PDF 130K |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal