Prescribing & Medicines Management
Issue no 1, p1
January/February 2003

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DoH hands pharmacists role in diabetes care

Pharmacists will play a central role in supporting the NSF for diabetes through improved medicines management services, the Department of Health's delivery strategy says.

The strategy, published last month (January), outlines how diabetes services could benefit from extending prescribing to pharmacists, allied health professionals and specialist nurses. Community pharmacists were singled out as regular points of contact for people with diabetes, and so could play a valuable role in monitoring treatments.

The delivery strategy also confirms that the DoH is working on guidance for medicines management for long-term conditions to support NSFs in diabetes and renal services, which it says will be published later this year.

Richard Seal, project manager for the medicines management collaborative, National Prescribing Centre, Liverpool, said he was not surprised that the delivery strategy had mentioned the role that medicines management could play in supporting the strategy. "One of our collaborative sites has had some pharmacists working with improvement measures around blood glucose monitoring, almost pre-empting the NSF really, so I'm not surprised."

Irene Gummerson, a community pharmacist in Wakefield and a member of the Diabetes UK primary care national committee, welcomed the move to include pharmacists in supporting delivery of the NSF. She added that establishing good relationships with local GPs and nurses would be crucial in developing medicines management services.

"In my situation it has taken a good 10 years to get the relationships up and running with local diabetes professionals. Hopefully because of the higher profile of pharmacists and the hype around the diabetes NSF it will make it a bit easier for pharmacists to become involved."

However, she added that it was up to pharmacists to prove that they wanted to become more involved in medicines management and develop their roles. But she said the mention of medicines management in the delivery strategy was highly significant. "When I first started 10 years ago there were few pharmacists interested in extending their roles in diabetes care, so to get to this point, where we are specifically mentioned in the Diabetes NSF is a great leap forward. But the contract has held us back. If that is resolved then our involvement could be even greater."

Ms Gummerson added that pharmacists who wanted to become more involved in diabetes care should identify who was most active locally, including the pharmaceutical adviser at the PCT and local diabetes groups. "If the PCT has identified diabetes as a priority then there could be money available for doing medicines management," she added.

Ms Gummerson was commissioned to write guidance to pharmacists to support the diabetes NSF, which was published by the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee last year. The full guide can be found at www.psnc.org.uk