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Three critical tasks for pharmacists – Clinical Pharmacy Congress North highlights
In his keynote lecture Richard Catell, Deputy Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, asked pharmacists to do three things:
- Make their voices heard in the development of the NHS 10-year plan
- Contribute to the development of competent, credible national pharmacy leadership via the UK Pharmacy Professional Leadership Advisory Board
- Share the Talent Management Resource Tool to give everyone the same opportunities
The ten-year plan for NHS England will be founded on three strategic shifts:
- secondary care to primary care,
- analogue to digital
- treatment to prevention,
At present a public engagement exercise is underway and Mr Catell urged pharmacists to share their ideas and views and “make your voices heard” via the NHS online platform.
Medicines’ optimisation
For the first time , 16 national medicines’ optimisation opportunities have been set out. One area where positive steps have been made is in antimicrobial stewardship. A 7.4% reduction in population exposure has already been achieved, towards a target of 15%, he noted. Another important opportunity is the standardisation of aseptically-compounded and special medicines. “The consequences of us not ordering 500 different versions of the same medicine, on the people who provide those medicines to us, on the patients who receive them, and importantly, the staff who prescribe them cannot be overstated”, he said.
Pharmacy First
Pharmacy First has been incredibly well-received by patients. Many people now have direct experience of using the service and “they couldn’t believe how good it was”, he said. Looking ahead, 185 independent prescribing Pathfinder sites are now exploring how community pharmacists can play a much greater clinical role as part of the primary care team. The project is expected to “establish a framework for how this may look and how NHS community pharmacy clinical services could incorporate independent prescribing”, he explained. The CLEO SOLO system, an electronic prescription service – an addition to the dispensing version of EPS, which everybody already has – is currently being deployed into Pathfinder sites. “Very early data from sites which have been prescribing show that out of 1200 consultations, 29% resulted in a prescription being issued, and while 350 medicines were prescribed, 68 were stopped”, he said.
Medication safety improvement, genomics and enhancing digital capability were also areas where progress is being made.
Independent prescribing
“Independent prescribing is our fundamental future for pharmacists and it makes us a global leader in pharmacy professional practice”, said Mr Catell. The roles of prescribing pharmacists are expected to grow, particularly as newly-qualified pharmacists will be ready to prescribe when they complete their training. “This means that when they make decisions about medicines, they’ll no longer have to ask someone else to enact those decisions”, he said. In 2023 there was a 37% increase in the number of independent prescribers in community pharmacy. By 2026 approximately half of all pharmacists will be independent prescribers and, this will rise to about 80% in the longer term. Pathfinder sites are working out how best to utilise the skills of independent prescribers in community pharmacy, he added.
A key step in the long-term workforce plan is the announcement of 530 new, funded pharmacy technician apprenticeships for community pharmacies. It is the first time that NHS England has taken such a step, he said.
Lastly, Mr Catell drew attention to the Pharmacy Workforce Race Equality Standard (PRES) that was published in 2023 and the Talent Management Resource Tool that has been compiled to improve diversity and support aspiring leaders.
The Clinical Pharmacy Congress North 2024 was held in Manchester 1st-2nd November.
