Call for new pharmacy leadership
Professional leadership in pharmacy should focus on clinical innovation in community pharmacy practice, rather than on regulatory matters and contract terms, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry has told a Parliamentary inquiry into the future of pharmacy. Dispensing should also become less important.
“Community pharmacy can only deliver the vision and patient benefits
laid out in the pharmacy contract if its leaders and representative bodies
drive the required changes,” an ABPI submission to the All-Party
Pharmacy Group’s inquiry says.
Calling for further changes to the pharmacy contract, the ABPI says that
a transparent debate is needed on whether pursuing purchase profits and
prescription volume are compatible with high-quality health care.
“As long as the pharmacy contract continues to incentivise pharmacists
for high volumes of dispensing and achieving higher discounts on medicine
purchased, that is what many will focus on,” the submission says. “The
general medical services contract has demonstrated that by incentivising
doctors to address genuine health needs this is what gets done.”
Although recognising that dispensing underpins the wider role that community
pharmacists can play, the ABPI believes that advanced services, such
as medicines use reviews, should be incorporated into the list of essential
services and, over time, should displace dispensing from its position
as the principal essential service.
The submission also says that pharmacists should take on more clinical
roles and that to do this they need comprehensive IT connectivity in
the NHS and access to patients’ medical records.
It advocates using pharmacists’ skills to:
• Enhance concordance and compliance, so that medicines are taken in
a way that improves outcomes
• Provide benefit/risk profiles of medicines and alternatives to them
• Improve the safer use of medicines, especially in nursing and residential
homes
• Reduce waste
• Actively promote better health and advise on other services
• Train staff working for the NHS and local authorities on medicines
management
Commenting, ABPI director general Richard Barker said: “The pharmacy
contract is a significant first step in realising the
potential that the community pharmacist has to play in health care, but
there now needs to be a more confident stride. The contract needs to
put a strong emphasis on giving incentives to community pharmacists to
make addressing health needs the main focus of their attention.” |
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Pharmaceutical Journal
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