PM pledges to strengthen screening and prevention
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Gordon Brown said that availability of screening tests would be
extended |
Screening, prevention and strengthened commissioning are to be the basis of continuing reform of the NHS in England, Prime Minister Gordon
Brown stated this week.
Speaking to health professionals at King’s College London, Mr
Brown said that tests to identify vulnerability to heart and circulation
problems
will be introduced, alongside check-ups to monitor for heart disease,
stroke, diabetes and kidney disease.
In addition, GP surgeries will provide
diagnostic procedures, such as blood tests, electrocardiograms and ultrasounds.
He also said the Government would commit to providing any screening procedures
that the National Screening Committee recommended would be genuinely
useful. “Wherever they recommend a new form of screening on clinical
grounds, we will make it available to everyone, not — as happens
too often now — just those who can pay.”
He also said that
any preventive vaccines currently in development would be offered on
the NHS wherever they are needed and when there is a clinical case for
making them available.
Health minister Ben Bradshaw later confirmed that pharmacists
would have an important role to play in the planned screening initiatives. Georgina
Craig, head of communications and partnership development at
the Company Chemists’ Association, told The Journal that
she was pleased to see pharmacy recognised in this commitment.
However,
she stressed, the
only way to enable pharmacy-based screening to be rolled out would be
to have it introduced as an advanced service. That is what the CCA hopes
will happen, she said.
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has also stressed the importance of
pharmacy involvement in the initiatives. David Pruce, director of practice
and quality improvement, commented: “Pharmacists already have expertise
in patient screening, and it makes sense that these further screening
plans are rolled out in the pharmacy. … Utilising the skills of pharmacists
provides an opportunity to free GPs, who don’t have the time or
capacity to screen patients and provide further follow up.”
In his speech, Mr Brown also said that more must be done to make NHS
organisations responsive to patients’ needs and to ensure funding
not only follows patients through treatment but also prevents illness. “We
will strengthen commissioning, give more responsibility to primary care
professionals and open up primary care: with more providers, new primary
care services, and more weekend and evening access.”
He also said
that foundation trusts would be given the freedom to provide primary
care services where this is in the interests of patients. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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