Primarolo wants pharmacy to take new direction
Key questions
Ms Primarolo wants the White Paper to address the
following key questions: • How do we best strengthen pharmacy’s
focus to one that promotes health and well-being?
• What changes are needed to help pharmacy make its mark in tackling
the major health inequalities that exist today?
• How do we ensure that pharmaceutical care is both more personalised
for patients and consumers, and integrated with other providers?
• What should we be doing to improve the quality of pharmaceutical
care across the board?
• How do we support this contribution through better commissioning
of pharmaceutical services? |
Preventing disease and tackling health inequalities are high priorities for the future, and the forthcoming White Paper will explore how pharmacy’s role and contribution in these areas can be expanded, according to health minister Dawn Primarolo, who was speaking at the Pharmaceutical
Services Negotiating Committee annual dinner held in London last week.
“We want to see pharmacy — and community pharmacy in particular — take
on a new and exciting direction. Pharmacies [should be seen] as healthy
living centres, with readily available expertise to help treat minor
ailments, to provide screening and routine testing services, and to provide
much more advice on medicines as well as structured support for patients
with long-term conditions,” she said.
Moving on to Lord Darzi’s NHS Next Stage Review for England, Ms
Primarolo assured guests that there is no “one size fits all” and
that local people and clinicians, not the Government, will decide what
is needed in their communities. So what the Government will do is develop
a vision of primary care that provides an overall framework to enable — not
hinder — the shaping of services locally. “And that must
be developed with you, not in spite of you,” she said.
Referring to recent
pharmacy engagement meetings with Lord Darzi, held
in London (PJ, 8 March 2008, p265) and Manchester, she said
that it was clear that the profession and individual practitioners accept
that integrated
clinical services are the right way
forward.
It was also clear that there is a need for strong local and national
leadership and a recognition of the challenges, such as practice-based
commissioning, and how contractual arrangements are constructed that
take them into account. “For my part, the White Paper will show
how we respond to these issues,” she said.
Ms Primarolo also revealed that, as part of the Government’s preparatory
work for the White Paper, it has undertaken two surveys in the past few
months to update its knowledge and understanding of exactly what the
public wants and expects.
“One looked at people’s use of pharmacy and the other looked
at the public’s perceptions of pharmacy and the services they want
to see. They reinforce the high esteem and value in which pharmacy is
held. We will publish these surveys alongside the White Paper so that
everyone can consider how best to shape their response.”
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