Pharmacists help to cut A&E waiting time
A&E pharmacy paper
A paper (PDF 80K) on the incidence of drug related
problems and the extent to which complete medication histories
are recorded
by doctors
and pharmacists in an A&E department is published in this issue
(pp109–12). |
Pharmacists have been key to the award of extra capital funding to some of the accident and emergency (A&E) departments that have met the Government target for patient waiting times. Departments that dealt
with 97 per cent of patients within four hours in the final quarter of
2004 are eligible for the £100,000 awards.
Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust has met the target.
Ursula Collignon, the trust’s senior pharmacist for emergency care,
explained that one of the ways that pharmacists support the A&E department
is by dealing with requests when patients present having run out of their
medicines. In this situation, the pharmacist is contacted and attends
the A&E department to make an emergency supply (Hospital Pharmacist 2004;11:476).
Ms Collignon also explained that the trust will pilot a service where
a pharmacist is based in the A&E department between 12.30pm and 9pm
every day. Their primary role will be to supply medication in the “minors” area
of the department, but they will also be available to provide advice.
Doubt has been cast on the accuracy of the statistics on A&E
department waiting times by the Healthcare
Commission. A survey of
around 55,300 NHS patients showed that only 77 per cent spent less
than four hours in A&E. The Government, however, claims that
the figure is 95 per cent.
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Hospital Pharmacist