Brown favours pharmacy involvement in future services
Future services to be offered from community pharmacies have featured more than once in speeches by Gordon Brown as he campaigns for the leadership of the Labour Party and the post of prime minister that goes with it.
Since starting his campaign at the end of last week, Mr Brown has made
it clear that the NHS is one of his priorities for improvement and that
pharmacy services are part of that.
“I think we’ve got to do far more with electronic prescriptions
so that people can get their prescriptions more easily,” Mr Brown
said in a BBC interview. Elsewhere, he said that he wanted to see blood
pressure checks available from pharmacies.
“I see us building up the NHS and making it a great British institution
and making it the envy of the world,” Mr Brown said.
Company Chemists Association chief executive Rob Darracott commented: “Mention
of pharmacy in his first speech on the health service bodes well for
the future.
… If he is serious about expanding the role of pharmacists, we need
to talk soon about a national minor ailments scheme to increase access
quickly and help deal with the developing urgent care crisis and about
advanced services to support people with long-term conditions. These
are services that pharmacy can get on and deliver, which gives us a real
chance to prove what we can do.”
However, Mr Darracott warned: “But we must proceed with caution.
Gordon Brown is clearly up for a fight with general practice; and pharmacy
doesn’t want to get stuck in the middle.”
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