The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has published Community Pharmacy forward view: Part 2 making it happen.
This is an outline implementation framework for the Community Pharmacy Forward View which sets out pathways for the policy change and examines the professional development and partnership working required to enable community pharmacy to play its full role within an integrated health and care system.
More information at The Community Pharmacy Forward View
Royal Pharmaceutical Society, November 2016
This report argues the case for community pharmacists being able to routinely prescribe medicines for people with long-term conditions and refer them directly to other health care professionals to ease the overwhelming demand facing the NHS. Currently, the care of people with long term conditions accounts for half of all GP appointments, 64 per cent of outpatient appointments and 70 per cent of all health and social care spending. The report estimates that up to £500 million of extra value could be generated if medicines were used in a more optimal manner in five therapeutic areas: asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure, vascular disease and schizophrenia.
The Patient’s Association, in partnership with the Primary Care Pharmacy Association, has published A survey of patients and carers views of pharmacists based in GP practices.
The survey found nearly 80% of patients both welcomed the addition of a pharmacist to the general practice team and said that they would welcome a review of their medicines by the pharmacist.
Nearly 80% of respondents also stated that they had better access to services with a GP based pharmacist. 70% felt that they did not need to make an appointment to see their GP after speaking to their pharmacist.
Read the full survey here
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has published Professional standards for the reporting, learning, sharing, taking action and review of incidents.
These standards describe good practice and good systems of care for reporting, learning sharing, taking action and review of incidents as part of a patient safety culture. Their implementation will improve patient safety and the quality of pharmaceutical services.
Changes include a reward system for high quality service and a pharmacy access scheme for isolated areas with higher health needs. | Department of Health
Plans to modernise community pharmacies, which will ensure a better quality service for patients and relieve pressure in other parts of the NHS, have been announced by the government.
This forms part of the government’s ambition to modernise the community pharmacy sector and make the most of pharmacists’ skills in all health care settings, including GP surgeries and care homes, to provide the highest level of
care to patients.
Read more via Department of Health
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society has published Good practice examples: commissioning of community pharmacists outside of the core contract.
This document contains 13 examples showing community pharmacy services can integrate with the wider primary care and community health system. The examples cover working with GP practice, patients with long term conditions and mental health issues, enhanced out of hours provision, domiciliary care, pharmacists in GP Out of Hours services and support for health and social care integration.
Read the full document here
The Care Quality Commission has published The safer management of controlled drugs Annual report 2015. This report highlights local and national initiatives to promote the safe use of controlled drugs and to reduce harm from their misuse. It also includes an overview of data for 2015 on prescribing of controlled drugs across England in the primary care sector and identifies any trends in prescribing, and highlights key changes to legislation. The report makes three recommendations to strengthen existing arrangements for reporting and sharing concerns about controlled drugs across England.
NHS Choices. Published online: July 7 2016
“Surgeries that handed out the fewest pills do not have higher rates of serious illnesses,” the Daily Mail reports.
A new study looked at the impact of prescribing patterns of antibiotics by GPs. The researchers were particularly interested in seeing what happened in practices where GP’s did not usually prescribe antibiotics for what are known as self-limiting respiratory tract infections (RTIs).
This cohort study aimed to determine whether the incidence of some diseases was higher in general practices that prescribe fewer antibiotics for self-limiting respiratory tract infections (RTIs).
It found that alongside reductions in the rate of antibiotics prescribed, rates of incidence for peritonsillar abscesses, mastoiditis and meningitis declined. Pneumonia showed a slight increase and no clear change was observed for empyema and intracranial abscesses.
The study had a good sample size, and represented the UK population well in terms of age and sex. However, there are a few points to note:
The researchers hope these findings will potentially be used in the context of wider communication strategies to promote and support the appropriate use of antibiotics by GPs.
Patients can also help by not pressuring GPs for antibiotics “just in case” they may need them.
Read the full analysis here
Read the original research article here
This paper highlights that community pharmacy in England, with approaching 11,700 pharmacies, represents health on the high street and within our communities. It calls for a community pharmacy-led model of care which fully utilises the expertise of the community pharmacist within the heart of many communities.
European Journal of Hospital Pharmacy
Qualitative study in the UK found that to improve the patient discharge process, innovative solutions are required to overcome current issues. A significant finding was a lack of patient involvement in the discharge process throughout the 13 hospitals included.
Objectives Medication discrepancies for patients after discharge from hospital are well documented. They have been shown to cause unnecessary harm to patients and can result in hospital readmission. To improve patient discharge, the current process of discharging patients from hospital (the discharge process) needs evaluating to determine where and why medication issues occur. This study aimed to identify and evaluate the discharge process used in a range of acute National Health Service hospitals across the North West of England.
Methods This qualitative study involved semi-structured telephone interviews with 13 chief pharmacists or an appropriately nominated member of the hospital pharmacy team. Thematic analysis of the transcribed interview data was performed. Data analysis revealed eight main themes which all impacted on the discharge process.
Results The study was successful in identifying the discharge process across the range of hospitals as well as key issues and examples of good practice. The hospitals involved in the study were found to have similar discharge processes with issues common to all. One significant finding was a lack of patient involvement in the discharge process.
Conclusions To improve the patient discharge process, innovative solutions are required to overcome the current issues. In future work, the study findings will be used to develop a new model of care for patient discharge from hospital.
Eur J Hosp Pharm doi:10.1136/ejhpharm-2016-000928
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