APPG inquiry takes evidence from Department of Health officials
The All-Party Pharmacy Group is a step closer to drafting its report on the future of pharmacy, following the seventh and penultimate evidence session of its inquiry last week. Witnesses at the session, held at
the Palace of Westminster, included Jeanette Howe, deputy chief pharmaceutical
officer for England, Keith Ridge, chief pharmaceutical officer for
England, and David Colin-Thomé, national clinical director for
primary care.
According to Mrs Howe, the community pharmacy contract has “widened
the range of services available from pharmacy”, but it was criticised
by APPG chairman Howard Stoate (PJ, 10 February, p154). “There
is no mechanism to sell services to anyone,” he said. Mrs Howe
partly attributed the modest uptake of enhanced services to the financial
problems in the NHS. However, competition and lack of integration are
other likely barriers.
Dr Colin-Thomé said that although the general medical services
and community pharmacy contracts were designed to sit alongside each
other, integration is going to take time. “For professions to be
able to collaborate and not to compete requires a step change,” Mr
Ridge said.
Dr Stoate said: “If practice-based commissioning is led by GPs,
they are pretty unlikely to commission their own services from somebody
else.” He added that the conveyer belt had to move, so GPs take
on secondary care work, pharmacists take on primary care work and technicians
take on dispensing and checking.
Pharmacist MP Sandra Gidley (LibDem, Romsey) said she could not see anything
coming from the DoH to help joint working and understanding across the
professions. The DoH said it recognises the need to make practice-based
commissioning multidisciplinary and will be concentrating on that in
2007–08, bringing together commissioners, primary care trusts and
pharmacists.
Other issues on the agenda included NHS IT and the current control of
entry review, which the DoH said would be conducted quickly to minimise
the length of uncertainty for pharmacists.
The final session of the inquiry will hear evidence from Lord Hunt, the
minister with responsibility for pharmacy, in March.
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