Barriers to pharmacy lie within primary care
Barriers to the development of pharmacy services and the expansion of the profession’s clinical role in the community lie within primary care rather than in pharmacy policy, according to the Company Chemists’ Association.
A CCA submission to the Department of Health on what the organisation
wants to see in the forthcoming pharmacy White Paper says: “Today,
pharmacy has a wide range of professional tools available to it in the
form of enhanced pharmacy services, pharmacist prescribing and pharmacists
with special interests. It is the CCA’s belief that the majority
of our barriers to progress now lie within primary care rather than pharmacy
policy.”
CCA chief executive Rob Darracott explained: “The pharmacy profession
received a clear steer from Dawn Primarolo at an All-Party Pharmacy Group
meeting that this White Paper is about joining pharmacy up with the rest
of the NHS. This places an onus and responsibility on pharmacy bodies
to engage with and understand the dynamics of the bigger NHS picture
and to think through and contribute policy solutions that go beyond the
realms of pharmacy. This is what we are seeking to do in this submission.”
Proposals set out in the submission include:
• Ensuring a level playing field for primary care providers
• Better service commissioning, including local pharmaceutical committee
input to ensure fairness, transparency and value for money
• A management competency programme for healthcare professionals, including
pharmacists, to professionalise clinical commissioning
• Further development of advanced pharmacy services and the removal of
limits on their provision
• Incentives to purchase effectively and use savings to expand pharmacy-based
services with 70 per cent of excess purchase profits being retained for
reinvestment in pharmacy-based patient care
• Contractual rewards for quality in the provision of pharmacy services
“It is a sad fact that the new pharmacy contract has not resulted
in greater collaboration between pharmacists and GPs,” the CCA
submission says.
“If anything, the lack of integration of the pharmacy
and general medical services contracts has caused friction, especially
in relation to the implementation of repeat dispensing and the development
of medicines use reviews in pharmacy.”
It suggests that the GPs’ quality and outcomes framework should
be used to facilitate collaboration between pharmacists and GPs and greater
engagement of primary care trusts with pharmacy services. |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal
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