Pharmacists to be core members of Welsh chronic conditions teams
Community pharmacists will form part of the core management team responsible for providing co-ordinated care for chronic conditions in Wales, the Welsh Assembly Government has revealed.
Outlining its service improvement plan for the next three years, the
WAG said that delivering chronic conditions management services that
are co-ordinated, comprehensive and consistent is a key ministerial priority
and an integral part of effective mainstream service delivery in the
community.
As part of this, all areas in Wales will need to provide a
core chronic conditions management service through a designated team.
This team will provide care across primary, secondary and social care
and include community pharmacy services to assist selfmanagement and
provide appropriate medication support.
In addition, pharmacists across care settings will need to develop and
deliver an action plan to improve medicines management and substantially
reduce medicines-related hospital admissions.
In future, the plan says, pharmacy’s contribution will be enhanced
by the commissioning of new roles and responsibilities though joint posts
across primary, secondary and social care, and pharmacists in all care
settings will have “appropriate” access to GP patient records.
The WAG’s service improvement plan for 2008–11, entitled “Designed
to improve health and the management of chronic conditions in Wales”,
warns that current services are unsustainable.
There is an over-reliance on traditional, often inappropriate, models
of care, and action is needed to ensure all resources in the community
are used to best effect to prevent admission to hospital, and to support
better care and self-care within the community, the plan says.
Speaking to The Journal about the service improvement plan, Paul
Gimson,
chief executive of Community Pharmacy Wales, commented: “This is
a national strategy on one of the major issues affecting health in Wales
and pharmacy has been identified as an integral part of that. It is fantastic
that one of the key strands of the strategy is how community pharmacy
can have an input into the management of chronic conditions.”
He added: “ That hasn’t happened by accident. It is the result
of a lot of hard work by the profession in Wales to convince WAG of the
role that pharmacy can play.”
Management of chronic conditions was discussed at a recent meeting of
the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Welsh Pharmacy Board (p227).
The Society has also produced a resource documentto
act as an evidence base to support service development and integrate
pharmacy
into care
pathways for the management of people with chronic conditions.
“Pharmacy
and integrated chronic conditions management in Wales” (PDF 430K) highlights
examples of innovative practice currently under way in Wales and across
the UK. |
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