Ireland - Pharmacists role to expand?
Article Type: News and views From: International Journal of Health Care Quality Assurance, Volume 22, Issue 2
Keywords: Primary healthcare, Healthcare screening,Healthcare access
The Irish Pharmacy Union (IPU) has proposed a radical expansion of the community pharmacists’ role in a bid to kick-start stalled contract talks with the HSE. The IPU claims this will achieve considerable savings in HSE drug costs.
Many General Medical Scheme (GMS) products are available to those who can afford them over the counter, without having to visit a GP to obtain a prescription.
For example, an elderly person with a medical card, who needs an antacid, has to attend a GP to get a prescription for a medicine, while a non-medical card patient can purchase the medicine from the pharmacist without a GP’s prescription.
The IPU has urged that GMS-eligible patients should not have to go to their GP to receive treatment for specified minor ailments that can be treated by pharmacists from the agreed list of non-prescription GMS items. The IPU also proposed in a submission last week to the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Health and Children on Primary Medical Care in the Community, that pharmacists should be able to issue generic substitutes for doctor-prescribed drugs.
The forthcoming merger of PCCC and the National Hospitals Office in September 2009 provides an opportunity for the HSE to move a number of healthcare services out of secondary care and into primary care, the IPU said. The primary aim of the mooted National Minor Ailment Scheme is to enable medical card patients to receive treatment for common illnesses free of charge direct from their local community pharmacy, it added.
This enhanced role for pharmacists has been introduced in Scotland and Northern Ireland with considerable success, said the IPU. It is estimated that in the North, up to 39 per cent of GPs’ workload in the winter can be spent dealing with minor self-limiting ailments that could be treated by community pharmacists.
Pharmacists should also be able to deliver screening services in the pharmacy, the IPU urged. Examples would include blood pressure and cholesterol screening, and giving people an indication of whether they are at risk of developing diabetes.
There are a number of other extended pharmacy services that the Union would like to see introduced into community pharmacies. These include monitored dosage systems, services to residential/nursing homes, extended methadone services,pharmacy-based needle exchange, vaccination clinics, community-based palliative care services, pharmacy-based warfarin clinics and chronic disease management services.
For more information: www.imt.ie
