It’s fair to say that the profile of practice pharmacists has never been higher. GP shortages and a population of GPs and Practice Nurses where a high percentage are approaching retirement age, has forced practices and GP federations to think outside-the-box about how they staff their practice. NHS England funding for Clinical Pharmacist in GP Practice scheme has also helped left the profile and focus the minds
In an ideal world it would be a GP who saw all patients, wouldn’t it? Maybe not. I worked in community pharmacy for many years and at the start, the only professionals who could sign a prescriptions were GPs and dentists. It always struck me as daft that the district nurses had to go to the GP and ask them to sign a prescription for dressings, something they knew little about and they were the first to admit it. Healthcare professionals with expertise should be the ones taking professional accountability for the areas they are experts in. That includes medication.
Pharmacists train for five years in total to be the experts in medication but many don’t get chance to use that knowledge fully. The NHS is excellent at diagnosis and initial care including prescribing, but ongoing monitoring of it’s £9.27 Billion investment on medication prescribed by GP practices, could be better. So a marriage made in heaven would be one where a practice pharmacist, maximises return on investment in medication for the patient, practice and wider NHS.
But we don’t hold the budget for prescribing I hear the GPs and Practice Manager cry. That’s true, the prescribing budget sits with the local CCG. The real benefit from for practices is more about improving access for patients and driving up quality.
Improving access
I audited myself in practice last week. During my session I completed roughly 100 medication reviews. They take anywhere from 2-10 minutes depending on the complexity of the patient. If we ere on the lower side at 3 minutes per review that totals 300 minutes or six hours. I was happy to complete all these reviews with maybe 1-2 needing input from the GP. I’m sure that a GP would take a similar length of time to review a patient but why use an expensive, and increasingly rare resource like a GP to complete the task? Those six hours could be spent on patient facing tasks doing the things only a GP can do and increasing access to patients.
Pharmacist can also run Level 3 reviews with polypharmacy patients or long term disease clinics increasing consultation slots and again, improving access to care for patients.
Improving Quality
Pharmacists are persnickety. There, I’ve said it, but you knew that anyway. We like detail and things being done the right way. Pharmacists are ideal for completing Clinical Audits and ensuring the practice follows best practice guidance like NICE, BTS, SIGN etc By focusing on the detail and reviewing practice pharmacists can support GPs and other practice colleagues to constantly strive to improve practice and service delivery.
Where can we get one of these mythical beasts that will drive down costs, increase access and drive up quality? Medacy offer to options. We provide a Pharmacist-Led clinical service to practices and GP federations or can help them recruit and engage pharmacists directly.
For more information contact Shaun Hockey on 0800 111 4102 or email support@medacy.co.uk
