Medacy Clinical Pharmacists – A typical day
Since launching our Clinical Pharmacist Service we have been inundated with enquiries from across the country and now are placing pharmacists at a rate of 5 or more per month!
So, what are these pharmacists doing in your practices and how are the practices finding this unique service?
Well maybe it would be best if we describe an average day for one of our not so average pharmacists.
Start
Meet Joanne everybody. Joanne is working in a busy, market town practice three days a week.
Her day starts with a telephone appointment list which is full of all the medication queries, acute requests, dispensary queries, and queries from 3rd party agencies such as chemists or nurses. These tasks might take an hour of her morning and are tasks which, more importantly, are no longer on a GPs task list. At the same time her GPs are tasking her any other work that she can manage. Medication reviews, amber drug monitoring, or therapy queries, you name it, all go onto her task list! She even has one afternoon clinic a week where the practice can book in patients who have slipped through the net and require a structured medication review; its amazing how many medications can be stopped and how a synchronised medication list makes everyone in the practice happy!
Re-authorisations are next – and lots of them. Checking all the appropriate monitoring is in place and where not, arranging bloods or reviews. She even books patients into her own clinics where she feels a telephone review is inadequate. More importantly the process is managed and is of a quality that makes a difference.
Clinical Documents
Next, she will process all the hospital discharges, clinic letters and request for treatment letters. She will update all the patients’ medication lists and inform the practice dispensary or other pharmacies of the changes. I addition she will identify local or practice formulary choice opportunities and implement these whilst calling the patients to check they understand any medication changes and are given any warnings necessary. She is imparting added quality to this task and feels confident she is preventing further problems or even admissions relating to her patients’ medication.
Also, in her remit, is to look at the CCG monthly topic and advise on the best way forward for both the NHS and the practice. Another GP task off loaded onto someone who can give it 100%. Not only that, she will implement any switches or stops and make sure the patients are informed and happy. No more dissatisfied patients clogging the over-stretched GP appointment list with moans about medication changes! No one has ever met a GP who enjoys this work and surely a GPs time is better used seeing sick patients?
So, Joanne is busy; very busy, and she loves it. She is part of the practice team and she feels appreciated and valued. Her GPs have had 24 hours per week of valuable time released back to them and they are using it to see more patients and to go home without work left to do after dinner. Joanne is making their families happy!
Dispensing Practices
Finally, the cream on the cake? The practice has a more profitable dispensary too, and dispensary staff who feel supported and empowered. Who wouldn’t want a Joanne of their own!
Her PM was happy for us to share this comment from a recent feedback form:
‘We wanted to trial a clinical pharmacist and using the Medacy Clinical Pharmacist Service was definitely the right way to go. They found us a very good pharmacist to fit our practice needs. I would recommend them to anyone unsure about the benefits of pharmacists within general practice’.
Yes, that was an unprompted quote for a happy practice manager; We couldn’t have written it better ourselves!!
Please, if you are still wondering what a pharmacist could do for you then stop wondering and find out. We can come and see you in practice and discuss how your bespoke service could look.
Contact Options
Call 01677 252205
Email shaun@medacy.co.uk
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