Community pharmacy: moving from dispensing to diagnosis and treatment

Abstract

Changes to the NHS community pharmacy contract have meant a shift of services from NHS primary care to the for profit community pharmacy sector. Elizabeth Richardson and Allyson M Pollock look at the extent of the changes to community pharmacy in the UK, and explain the implications.

Changing patient consultation patterns in primary care: an investigation of uptake of the Minor Ailments Service in Scotland

“…Instead of simply concentrating on the impact of pharmacy ownership on service provision and quality, and characterising general medical practice as "NHS primary care" and pharmacy as the "for profit community pharmacy sector" as recent commentators have [9], more effort should be directed at commissioning services on the basis of appropriateness and quality. Renewed thought needs to be given to effective remuneration frameworks for community pharmacy [29,30] that appropriately incentivise both community pharmacy owners and practitioners.…”

“…Paradoxically, in a recent analysis of the development of community pharmacy-based clinical services in England, it has been suggested that there is limited evidence for the commissioning of MAS [9].…”

Community, autonomy and bespoke services: Independent community pharmacy practice in hyperdiverse, London communities

“…7,8 In the same year the 2003 General Medical Services (GMS) contract 9 came into force allowing services previously carried out in general practice to be contracted to other providers including pharmacists. 6 A new contract for pharmacy was published in 2004 taking on board these recommendations and implementation began in April 2005. The reformed contract was designed to lessen reliance on dispensing and to encourage the undertaking of a range of other services which include locally commissioned activities such as needle exchange, smoking cessation programs and minor ailment schemes.…”

“…5 It has also been suggested that this shift in the marketplace will affect both service provision and attempts to expand the pharmacists' professional role. 6 Framing the pharmacists understanding of their position in the world was the continuing background of change within community pharmacy in England and Wales. The seeds of change were sown when, in 2003 the Department of Health published A Vision for Pharmacy.…”

Impact of community pharmacists in COPD management: Inhalation technique and medication adherence

“…Studies including COPD and asthma patients together, and observational studies involving CPs or those conducted in community pharmacy settings were also included. As the last decade has witnessed the implementation of community pharmacy medication management services, in many countries, that targets patients with LTCs [19][20][21] The excluded studies were as follow: three studies with interventions conducted by clinical/ hospital pharmacists on COPD patients, nine studies including both asthma and COPD patients where by the interventions were not done by CPs, two documents that constituted grey literature, one study in Dutch language, and one study with pharmacist-led intervention but focusing on COPD exacerbation management with systemic corticosteroids. A study with intervention done by CPs was excluded to avoid duplication of data since the data was once published jointly with asthma patients and once on COPD patients only.…”