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Time for answers

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Time for answers

Nine out of 10 adults saw pharmacies as an essential community asset

The sector should use the current government consultation to come up with some answers to how it can deliver better care, says Claire Ward, chair of Pharmacy Voice

Car maker Henry Ford once said: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse”. Steve Jobs said something similar about people not knowing they wanted an iPhone. The point is that you have to have the leadership and imagination to show people what they need, as they often don’t know what they need or what is possible.

The same applies in the world of pharmacy. Patients often don’t know what they need or what their local pharmacy is capable of providing. So rather than take the risk, they turn up at their GP surgery or A&E where they are familiar with the care on offer. But this is simply not sustainable – not just because it is financial madness, but also because it fails to utilise the services and skills of other healthcare professionals.

If there was ever a time to create something more than a ‘faster horse’ in pharmacy it is now. The infamous letter of December 17 and the subsequent consultation from the DH and NHSE has required pharmacy to think carefully about what it is for, but more importantly what it could be in the future.

We know that the government pressure for change is primarily financial, because George Osborne needs to deliver his political and economic objectives to be in surplus by 2020. Across community pharmacy we will continue to oppose the arbitrary cuts to funding and ill-thought-out proposals. We know that patients value pharmacy for its services.

The NPA recently commissioned a survey of 2,000 people to understand the public attitude towards community pharmacy. It found that nine out of 10 adults saw pharmacies as an essential community asset, ranking their importance in a neighbourhood only behind that of a GP surgery and ahead of banks, grocers and post offices.

A third of those polled had sought advice on the best use of medicine within the past six months, increasing to nearly 50 per cent in the case of mothers with children under the age of five. Over 40 per cent of those polled said they would go to their GP surgery if they could not access the local pharmacy, and a further 28 per cent would go to an NHS walk-in centre, call 111, 999, or visit A&E.

These figures should make the politicians sit up. If they think they have problems in GP surgeries and A&E now, imagine how bad it could become if people didn’t have access to pharmacy. This is not just about money either; in many cases patients would not get the best or most timely care.

So we know that patients and the public value pharmacy now. Perhaps they would like their prescriptions dispensed faster; after all, “it’s only tablets”. What many don’t know is how much more their pharmacy offers.

The future is not about quicker dispensing, it is about quality of care, about making it less likely that patients visit their GP and more likely that they can manage their own long-term care. It is about pharmacy-led diagnostics, health screenings and maximising support for self-care. It is about patients with long-term conditions knowing that they can get advice and support from the pharmacy team on how to best use their medicines.

But this consultation is not just about the money. The DH and NHSE know that pharmacy needs to change. They know it can and should provide more care. They are just not sure how; look at the inconsistencies in their arguments over the past few months.

Pharmacy has to come up with the answers. The questions are easy: what role can community pharmacy play in improving patient outcomes and what will this look like in five years’ time? The answers might be more difficult, but we would be foolish to not focus on those issues while discussing professional roles.

Most importantly, it is not just about providing answers from one part of the sector. Real success would be to show that the sector is united, through its trade associations and preferably through Pharmacy Voice, in understanding the challenges and promoting its plans for community pharmacy.

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