NEWS
TWO PHARMACIES SOLD TO SCOTTISH GROUP OPERATOR
SCOTTISH CHEMIST GOES INTERNATIONAL!
A Scottish entrepreneur is expanding rapidly into international markets with a computerised system for quickly and accurately dispensing methadone, the heroin substitute which allows addicts to regulate and control their lives.
Stephen Dickson, director of MethaMeasure, has captured more than half of the UK market for fast, accurate and reliable methadone dispensing and is now winning significant business in Canada and Australia as well as penetrating new markets in Africa.
Specialist business property adviser, Christie & Co, has sold the two David Wyse pharmacies in Port Glasgow to a group operator in the west of Scotland.
Both pharmacies had been in the hands of their previous owners for a long time - one branch for over 40 years and the other since 1977. The businesses are unopposed in Port Glasgow town centre, with the closest pharmacy, which belongs to a corporate operator, located more than one mile away.
‘It was a rare opportunity in Scotland
for two high dispensing pharmacies in one town centre to come onto the market,’ said Karl Clezy, Director at Christie & Co who handled the sale. ‘The supply of pharmacies in the marketplace has been scarce for a very long time now, and sales prices are increasing as a result.
‘Although both pharmacies were trading successfully, they still had a great deal of growth potential which is why they attracted so much interest. After a short confidential marketing campaign, multiple offers were received from a mix of buyers, mainly Scottish-based group operators.’
NEW CAMPAIGN BRINGS HOPE TO THOSE WITH LTCS
An average of one in three people across Great Britain has at least one long-term condition, and caring for them accounts for around 50 per cent of GP appointments and approximately 70 per cent of the health and social care budget across the country.
Now, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has launched a new campaign to improve the care of people with long-term conditions through the better use of pharmacists.
RPS has made four key calls to action:
1. Pharmacists providing direct patient care should have the opportunity to train to become a prescriber, fully utilising those skills as part of the multidisciplinary approach to managing and supporting people with long-term conditions. To enable this change, it is asking for the law to
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change to allow practising prescribing pharmacists to mentor pharmacists, who want to become prescribers.
2. The patient journey will be made easier by enabling pharmacists to directly refer to appropriate health and social care professionals, improving patient access to care and reducing the number of unnecessary appointments.
3. Patients will benefit from further integration of pharmacists into their multidisciplinary team, ensuring support at every stage of their journey, from prevention through to treatment and management of their long-term condition(s).
4. All pharmacists directly involved in patient care should have full read and write access to the patient health record, with patient consent, in the interest of high quality, safe and effective patient care.
It is a remarkable and continuing success story for its young inventor, who is also director and superintendent pharmacist at Dickson Chemist, the award- winning, family-owned, Glasgow- based pharmacy group.
‘We are at the stage in Canada and Australia that we were at in the UK several years ago,’ said Stephen, ‘where we are experiencing an exponential uptake of the MethaMeasure system as pharmacies learn about its benefits.
‘It is now being recognised internationally as a user-friendly system which reduces the potential for errors, facilitates increased workflow and affords confidence in the administration of methadone dispensing.
Stephen first introduced the process ten years ago to ease the issues
To support its campaign, RPS has published policy documents that focus on how the role of the pharmacist can be enhanced to prevent, identify, treat and support people with long-term conditions, as part of a multidisciplinary approach.
‘This campaign,’ said John McAnaw, Chair of RPS Scotland, ‘gives us a great opportunity to further promote the role of the pharmacist around long-term conditions, and clearly outlines what is needed to allow further ‘added value’ in the delivery of frontline care. Our community pharmacies and pharmacists should have a greater role and profile in the delivery of care to people with long term conditions, and I fully support the recommendations being
surrounding methadone in his own pharmacies in the East End of Glasgow, especially concerning accurate identification of the drug recipients.
Many practices had in excess of 100 methadone users a day and he secured funding from the local healthcare cooperative to place a basic dispensing bottle pump in each pharmacy to ease local demand.
Mr Dickson had the first MethaMeasure machines manufactured by a company in East Kilbride and gained CE marking, the European Conformity symbol which shows a product complies with EU safety, health and environmental requirements.
The MethaMeasure system is now also receiving World Health Organization funding for introduction in Africa - at the moment specifically Kenya, which suffers from the joint fourth- largest HIV epidemic in the world, alongside Mozambique and Uganda.
‘MethaMeasure is gaining traction in Africa,’ Stephen continued, ‘because MethaMeasure can also be used to quickly and accurately dispense antiretroviral agents, a combination of multiple drugs which act on different stages of the HIV life-cycle. The whole process is multi-disciplinary and based on technology literally developed by a Scottish ‘twenty-something’ in a basement!’
made. With an increasing number of people now living with a long term condition in Scotland, we already know that the pharmacist’s expertise in the use medicines and in supporting self-management strategies can help people achieve the right outcomes from treatment. However more can be done, and if pharmacists are given the right tools, support and access to the clinical information they need they will help maximise patient outcomes. I want to see these recommendations being taken forward in Scotland, and ensure that those people with a long term condition benefit further from the knowledge and expertise their pharmacist can offer as part of the wider care team.’
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