The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 279 No 7468 p250
8 September 2007

This article
Reprint   Photocopy

  Acrobat Reader

News summary

Joint pharmacy/GP service opportunity in Scotland

Community pharmacists in Scotland could set up new services through a primary care programme announced by the Scottish Government last week.

The “Scottish enhanced services programme for primary and community care” is primarily aimed at GPs but it has created an opportunity for pharmacists to set up joint services with medical practices.

Alison Strath, principal pharmaceutical officer, Scottish Government, explained: “It will be up to NHS boards to decide how this money is spent. One of its aims is to promote joint working across the health professions, so pharmacists should think about local needs and talk to GPs about how they can work together to tackle them.”

She added that this theme of co-operative working between pharmacists and GPs is reflected in the new pharmacy contract.

NHS boards are being asked to choose a minimum of three enhanced services to develop according to local need. Although exact service specifications will be drawn up by the boards, nine outline specifications have been produced which meet national priorities.

They are:

• Services for adults with learning disabilities

• Alcohol screening and brief interventions

• Care for adults with diabetes

• Cancer and urgent referral audit

• Services for carers

• Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) rehabilitation

• Falls prevention and bone health

• Childhood obesity

• Flexible GP appointments

In addition, boards can come up with services to meet other local needs.

An earlier consultation on the service programme suggested roles for pharmacists within falls prevention, COPD and the alcohol brief intervention services.

Alex MacKinnon, head of corporate affairs, Community Pharmacy Scotland, said: “There will be opportunities for pharmacists to develop services, particularly to make the most of community pharmacy’s accessibility. Pharmacy contractor committees should engage with NHS boards to explore these opportunities.”

Services must be in place by January 2008 and boards need to develop outline proposals for how services will be delivered by 1 October this year. Funding has initially been allocated for a year and a half, with £6.5m having been allocated for 2007–08 and £13m for 2008–09.

Details of the programme were published in an NHS circular last week (PDF 100K), and the outline service specifications were due to be published online this week (PDF 130K).