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Answering the call

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Answering the call

The pharmacy world has responded in force to its ‘Call to Action’ and is waiting to see what happens next. Charlotte Rixon reports

NHS England closed its ‘Call to Action’ on ‘Improving health and patient care through community pharmacy’ last month, following an overwhelming response. Pharmacy organisations and teams submitted over 800 written and online responses on how community pharmacy could be better organised to meet the changing needs of patients.

Breaking down barriers

In its response, Pharmacy Voice (PV) asked NHS England to focus on removing barriers that prevent pharmacy innovations being more widely adopted, rather than developing new models from scratch, and also called for a practical reporting system to reduce medicines-related harm.

PV’s other recommendations included the development of national specifications for core pharmacy services like smoking cessation and flu vaccination, but with the flexibility to implement them locally, as well as greater investment into the training of pharmacy teams to help them embrace their changing roles.

Rob Darracott, PV chief executive, said: “Our response reflects the increased complexity faced by pharmacy in the new commissioning environment,” and stressed the need to “not only act at a national level but also at a local level to move important agendas for pharmacy forward”.

Working together

Reiterating the vision for community pharmacy outlined in its ‘Now or Never’ report, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) English Pharmacy Board urged NHS England to commit to involving pharmacists in all aspects of clinical management in community care. To make this happen, its top three enablers include: more support for pharmacist prescribing, simpler pharmacy service commissioning and substantial investment into pharmacy IT.

Backing up the response, David Branford, RPS English Board chair explained that it was essential that “community pharmacy is not seen in isolation but that every stage of the medicines pathway is clarified so that all the parts work together and are supportive of overall care”.

Continuity of care

To ensure continuity of care when patients move between healthcare settings, several groups stressed the need for pharmacists to gain access to patient records, while the Pharmacist Defence Association (PDA) called for individual named pharmacist medicines champions.

NHS England’s next step is to independently review the responses and gather patient feedback.

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