Pharmacy Daily | Health pros? Patients forget pharmacy

PATIENTS often fail to list visits to their local pharmacy when asked about their recent interactions with health professionals, C|T Group Head of Research, Dr Michael Turner has advised.

Turner urged pharmacists to present themselves as health professionals at Pharmacy Connect in Sydney on Fri, after revealing data showing patients did not consider them as "health professionals" when asked to name which healthcare professionals they had encountered in the previous 12 months during a series of focus groups conducted by C|T Group on behalf of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia.

"Not one person in all the seven focus groups we did mentioned a pharmacist," he said.

"However, once we probed them and said, 'how about pharmacists?' everyone put their hands up.

"This is because it's not top of mind for patients to think of pharmacists as the healthcare professions.

"They are the most under- appreciated health professionals operating in Australia."

While often forgotten, pharmacist are the most visited health profession in the country, with the average Australian visiting a pharmacy twice as frequently as they do their general practitioner.

Turner noted that price of medicines was a key factor for patients when assessing their views on pharmacy, with patients who reported having no relationship or a bad one with their pharmacist likely to identify cost of medicines as a key factor in determining their view of the pharmacy.

However, those who have a good relationship with their pharmacist tended to focus on services.

Turner told delegates, "it's very clear that voters want pharmacists to be able to play a greater role in the community delivering health services.

"They strongly support the government spending money to help pharmacists to deliver additional services," he said.

"There is very little opposition to the ideal of allowing pharmacists, and funding pharmacists to provide health services."