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Healthcare in the community

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Healthcare in the community

The Pharmacy and Public Health Forum has made great progress in advocating community pharmacy’s public health role, but needs to take a fresh approach if it is to meet the challenges of devolving health services and funding cuts, attendees heard at the Pharmacy Show 2015.

During a panel discussion, Jonathan McShane, chair of the Pharmacy and Public Health Forum, and Rob Darracott, chief executive of Pharmacy Voice, described how the Forum, since it launched in 2011, has provided a means of gathering an evidence base for public health interventions in pharmacy, established a set of professional standards for pharmacy public health services and helped pharmacies to meet the challenges of service commissioning moving to local authorities. However, since the NHS reforms came into effect in 2013 and with local authorities struggling with funding cuts, there are concerns that progress has slowed down.

The panel also discussed the new challenges and opportunities created by Health and Wellbeing Boards, but Mr McShane expressed his concern about how poorly represented community pharmacy is on these boards. He said: “We need to give pharmacies the tools to engage locally. As local leaders, we have a huge amount to offer to health and social care. They should go to the chair of their local health and wellbeing board and say you miss a trick if you don't have our input.”

Mr Darracott agreed, saying: “We are getting better at networking, but it takes a certain amount of bloody-mindedness to get involved. Too often we wait to be asked to get involved, or for our national organisations to bang a drum for use, but the best seller of community pharmacy in a local area is the community pharmacist from the local area. Who better to speak up for the profession in the local community than the professionals themselves?”

The panel closed by considering the role and potential of healthy living pharmacies (HLPs) – which the Pharmacy and Public Health Forum helped roll out – in light of concerns that awareness of the scheme has decreased among commissioners. Mr Darracott acknowledged that the HLP momentum has slowed down and suggested that pharmacies should no longer think of the scheme as “a badge” that will lead to more commissioning of services, but as “a platform from which to have a conversation with other parts of the healthcare system”.

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