NHS Pharmacy
Community pharmacy teams are the unsung heroes of the NHS.
Around 1.6million people visit a pharmacy every day, many with minor aliments, which takes considerable pressure of GP services. Indeed as many as one in every five or 6 patients who contact GP surgeries have symptoms that could be managed effectively by pharmacists.
Over 1 billion prescription items are dispensed every year in England involving numerous contacts with patients where information on medicines are shared and advice given.
From a public health perspective, pharmacists see more healthy people than any other group of health care professionals, so they are well placed to make interventions to help keep people healthy, and to prompt people to make healthier choices.
NHS Pharmacy Team Colleagues
A pharmacy team, fully integrated within a modern health centre, can bring significant information and knowledge benefits with the surgery health care team – not just to the patients being served. It is a fact that most NHS clinical interventions result in a prescription medicine being prescribed – so the opportunity for these interventions to be supported by a qualified medicines expert is significant indeed. From advising on how to take the medicines properly to vigilance for side-effects and correct dosing. If these issues are not understood or addressed then the clinical efforts of GPs will have been in vain, leading to considerable waste, as well as the condition or illness not being treated properly.
NHS Pharmacy First Services – Surgeries with co-located pharmacies are especially well placed to take advantage of the NHS Pharmacy First service. Surgery receptionists can refer patients with minor conditions to the pharmacy, especially when primary care appointment options are scarce. The patient will have a same-day consultation with the pharmacist, with prescription medicines potentially being available for a number of common conditions such as Urinary Tract Infections (UTI), Sinusitis, Impetigo, Shingles, and several more!
NHS Pharmacy Blood Pressure Checks Service – pharmacy teams can now take referrals from surgeries to check and monitor blood pressure, including 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (ABPM).
Every referral streamed from the surgery to the pharmacy serves to reduce pressure on the practice, both on the clinical teams and on the operational budget, with average sized practices potentially referring a dozen or more patients every day to local pharmacies!