NUMARK OPINION The Pharmacy Bucket list
One of the biggest drains on the health system is medicine wastage. It has been quoted that nearly 50% of all prescribed medicines are wasted, a lot due to MDS.
cost which just keeps rising. In their minds, the money which goes into the system is like water being poured into a bath with the plug out.
Solving this conundrum can seem daunting, but this is why I believe that the community pharmacy profession can help.
One of the biggest drains on the health system is medicine wastage. It has been quoted that nearly 50% of all prescribed medicines are wasted, a lot due to MDS.
We all have a ‘’bucket list’’, whether it’s merely a day dream or an efficient and precise paper copy prioritised accordingly. Some items on the list are achievable, some aspirational and some just downright fantasy. I usually find myself within the latter category muses Numark’s Wayne Harrison.
Department of Health? I think for the purpose of this column we will concentrate on what an achievable and aspirational list could look like— the third category could perhaps include doing MURs in Barbados!
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In today’s primary care environment pharmacies should have the capabilities to carry out the following services: • MURs • Managing your medicines • Smoking cessation • Minor ailments
Along with these there is opportunity to provide private services such as: • Flu clinics • Travel clinics • Cholesterol testing • Weight management
These services are all achievable for community pharmacy to deliver, but we know only too well that time is very much at a premium. If we look at the ‘achievable’ bucket list what seems
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ut what if each pharmacy found themselves asked to formulate a bucket list and present it to the
to be hindering pharmacy? Or in other words, taking up our time that results in it being nigh on impossible to carry out these worthwhile services?
It has now become abundantly clear that over the past few years script numbers are growing incrementally higher.
The sheer time it takes to fulfil these scripts, procure the medication—and at the most efficient price—has become a major burden on the pharmacy profession.
But, although carrying out these services is difficult for the modern day pharmacy, we know that they are still very much achievable as a lot of forward-thinking pharmacists have created ways and means to carry out streamlined and efficient buying through IT solutions built into their PMR.
Let’s look at the so called aspirational bucket list. It is quite apt that while writing this column that contractors in Northern Ireland are going through a
process of costing their service to the Department of Health.
In doing so, contractors need to review every aspect of their profession and business and they have to get it correct as the future of their business depends on it.
However, the more I think of the process, the more I think that we are looking at community pharmacy from the wrong end of the telescope.
I suggest there is an opportunity for community pharmacy not to put a cost on the present day running of a pharmacy, but to cost what a sustainable all-encompassing pharmacy of the future would look like.
There will always be conflicting ideals on the current business model of community pharmacy. Northern Ireland has been in gridlock for years and in England the announcement of future funding cuts has created a stench of worry.
The Department of Health looks at the trend of script number increases as a
Pharmacy has to cost and get the suitable resource provided to tackle this issue. I feel that it is imperative that community pharmacists interact with every acute and chronic patient that they service, especially those on MDS.
A model could be created which adheres to the following template: • Monthly medicine adherence interaction with MDS patients either in their home or the pharmacy • Quarterly multi-disciplinary meetings with domiciliary care workers, community nurses, GPs, etc. to discuss patient outcomes
It is vital that the patient sees the pharmacist as an integral part of healthcare and this can only be established by nullifying home delivery services, hub and spoke models, etc.
These services only fuel the crux of the problem which is a lack of interaction and adherence. We need patients to use pharmacists as a pathway to discuss side effects, medicines which they are not taking and reasons why and to provide a platform whereby they can pop in and get a full MOT health check.
This has to be costed correctly as it would be a model which requires comprehensive resource, but it could be a declaration of principles which modern day pharmacy is built on.
I believe that in the future this is a realistic aspirational goal. It’s not quite as exotic as carrying out MURs on a beach in Barbados, but sure, life is full of compromises! n
Flu clinics Tvel clinics Cholterol tting Weight mat
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