A new long-term plan released by England's National Health Service has promised to explore "further efficiencies" in community pharmacy, including significant reforms to how pharmacy services are reimbursed.
Plans include the funding of "expanded community multidisciplinary teams" including pharmacists, GPs and allied health professionals, as part of measures to "finally dissolve the historic divide between primary and community health services".
The intention of the review proposal is to seek ways to more fully utilise the skills pharmacists can bring to the community and to more fully engage patients in the management of their own health.
In this way the NHS hopes to "improve the effectiveness" of public health programs such as health checks.
Community pharmacists, voluntary sector partners and GPs will be engaged to assess patients for "high-risk conditions", such as high blood pressure, raised cholesterol and atrial fibrillation.
The program would also see the creation of "pharmacy connections schemes" set up by clinical commissioning groups for patients who don't need primary medical services.
Referrals from the NHS "111" health call centre service will send patients to community pharmacies who support urgent care and promote patient self-care and self-management, the proposal document specified.
Clinical pharmacists get a strong mention throughout the document especially those employed within doctors' surgeries, elevating them as "a key part of the general practice team in primary care networks".
NHS plans to provide funding to support more such inserted pharmacist roles.
The NHS also proposes to align pharmacists with aged care homes as announced originally by Prime Minister Theresa May in Nov.
This will result in care home residents getting "regular clinical pharmacist-led medicine reviews where needed".
The final focus of the NHS document was economics - the Government body intends to minimise the routine prescribing of "low-clinical-value medicines" to save more than 200m a year.
The latest treatments to be given "low priority for NHS funding" included amiodarone, dronedarone and emollient bath products.
See the NHS long-term plan at longtermplan.nhs.uk.
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