Strengthening pharmacy

The Scottish Government has released its plan to strengthen the role of pharmacy in both hospital and the community.

‘Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care’ aims to transform the role of pharmacy across all areas of practice, increase capacity, and offer the best possible person-centred care.

The Scottish Government’s Chief Pharmaceutical Officer Dr Rose Marie Parr launched the new strategy while visiting the pharmacy team within the GP practice at Port Glasgow Health Centre and the community pharmacy team at M&D Green Pharmacy in Port Glasgow, one of the sites where the extended Minor Ailment Service is being piloted in Inverclyde.

Health Secretary Shona Robison said:

“This strategy is a vital part of our efforts to transform primary care, enabling more people to be treated at home or in the community and easing pressure on other services.

“It sets out our priorities for improvements over the next five years – helping to deliver our commitment that every GP practice will have access to a pharmacist with advanced clinical skills by 2021.”

Dr Parr said:

“Pharmacy teams in both hospital and the community already play an important role in the provision of NHS services.

“In the community, we are making good progress in promoting local pharmacies as the first port of call for our most common healthcare needs and I want to encourage more people to see them as their initial point of care. Coupled with the commitment to transform hospital pharmacy services, I believe this strategy will support our ambition to deliver world class pharmaceutical care.

“The commitments and actions in this strategy will help the public and professions alike realise the true value that pharmacy can bring to our communities and daily lives.”

Chair of Community Pharmacy Scotland, Martin Green said:

“Community Pharmacy Scotland welcomes the release of ‘Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care’ and is delighted to see that our core clinical services and skills will be developed and promoted over the next five years.”

Background

‘Achieving Excellence in Pharmaceutical Care’ can be found here.

Additional quotes:

NHS Education for Scotland is developing and delivering a comprehensive education and training programme. Professor Anne Watson, Postgraduate Pharmacy Dean said:

“We need to equip pharmacists to deliver high quality clinical care in all settings, through independent prescribing and advanced clinical skills. We will be developing our learning pathway for pharmacists and pharmacy technicians working in general practice, and implementing clinically-focused training programmes for newly qualified pharmacists working in all sectors."

Director of Pharmacy at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Professor Norman Lannigan said:

“Our Pharmacy and Prescribing Support Unit were delighted to be given an opportunity to test the changes in how pharmaceutical care is delivered within our GP practices and local pharmacies in Inverclyde. I am very grateful to Margaret Maskrey and Audrey Thompson for their leadership of this project and to our fantastic team of pharmacists and pharmacy technicians. I also want to thank our General Practitioners and their practice teams for playing their part in integrating our teams into their practice.”

Clinical Director at Inverclyde Health and Social Care Partnership, Dr Hector Macdonald said:

“Pharmacy teams are making an important difference by working directly within GP practices’ multidisciplinary teams and consulting with patients on a range of medicine related needs.

“The increased pharmacy contribution within our GP practices has led to improvements in quality and efficiency of patient care.”