DIAGNOSTICS
and an overall ability to signifi cantly improve the disease state of a patient, pharmacists also offer a unique ability to offer diagnostic testing for various disease indicators on the high street, making these tests infi nitely more accessible for patients, and also alleviating stresses on other areas of the health service, whilst also offering a reduced cost to NHS Scotland. However, such services may not be utilised to their fullest due to our patients still harking back to the “tablet-counting” stereotype which still plagues the profession. In order to increase uptake in these services, and lead to marked improvements, pharmacists should be fully aware of the services they can offer from the comfort of their own pharmacies, whilst being fully aware of how these tests are carried out, and how to interpret the generated results.
40 - SCOTTISH PHARMACIST
Diagnosis on the Doorstep A
longside a unique expertise on medications and their use, provision of condition- improving lifestyle advice,
TESTING TIMES It’s not headline news that the NHS in Scotland, as well as the rest of the UK, has been subjected to a massive number of cutbacks. If we think about pharmacy alone, dispensing fees are being squeezed, and reimbursement for services offered by pharmacists are being reduced, all in efforts to claw the Health Service back into the black. We’re (despite what you might hear from others) not alone in this, and other professionals are being hit in the bank balance as well – and it’s not set to get any better, as the NHS funding gap across the UK is estimated to be £30 billion within the next 10 years1
.
As a result, tough questions are being asked of our Health Care system, which must be answered to prevent a healthcare Armageddon in Scotland, and further afi eld.
An answer, and a seemingly logical one, is to use healthcare practitioners more sensibly, allowing them to carry out a wider range of tasks, and make
full use of their capabilities. Doing this would simultaneously lighten the load on fellow professionals, and lead to the improvement of patient care, as they’re seeing the right professional at the right time. Indeed, steps have already been taken to allow pharmacists to lighten this load - the Minor Ailments Scheme. Introduced in 2006 as a result of the “Right Medicine Strategy for Pharmaceutical Care in Scotland”, the service has allowed for the treatment of countless patients without the need for them to visit their GP2
. Additionally, the
scheme has gone from strength to strength, with the introduction of ePharmacy aspects to further improve patient care and record keeping3
.
As a result of all this, we know that pharmacists have a good track record in accepting a wider range of responsibilities, so it seems that the profession might hold one of the keys to maintaining and improving the NHS we know and love. Thus, another
way that pharmacists can fully utilize their skills, whilst benefi tting patient and health system alike, is by carrying out a range of diagnostic testing for various common ailments. Such activities offer a number of advantages in addition to those already mentioned, including promotion of the profession to the public and making our patients more aware of our full range of skills and expertise. Moreover, such services will allow patients to be dealt with, diagnosed, and referred more speedily, preventing the occurrence of long-term complications which may occur whilst spending time on a waiting list of one form or another. The use of diagnostic testing can also be used as a valuable tool for health promotion within the pharmacy setting, as patients may respond better to this advice on seeing how their current lifestyle is impacting their health. At present, community pharmacists have a large range of services available which they can offer to patients, and it is important that we
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