In News

Follow this topic

Bookmark

Record learning outcomes

Pharmacists save the NHS an estimated £300,000 a week by preventing the inappropriate supply of over 15,000 items that are not needed.

This was just one of the findings of a national audit by Pharmacy Voice highlighting the essential contribution pharmacists make to medicines optimisation and improvement of patient safety through repeat dispensing and ordering systems.

The audit of over 3,000 pharmacies, more than 150,000 patients and 651,897 prescriptions found that:

• One in five patients had some sort of query with their prescription that required resolution
• Four out of five queries were addressed by the pharmacist. These were most often dealt with by discussing the medication with the patient (36 per cent) or by checking the patient’s medication record (36 per cent)
• The majority of medications were collected from the pharmacy, either by the patient or their representative, but over one in 10 repeat medications were delivered to patients at their own home (13 per cent)
• Over 250 prescription items were not supplied because patients said they could not afford them
• In over 10,000 cases, items that the patient was expecting did not appear on the prescription.

“Community pharmacies are increasingly finding these valuable services being put under scrutiny and inappropriate restriction by some CCGs,” says Rob Darracott, chief executive of Pharmacy Voice.

This audit provides pharmacy teams with “real evidence to demonstrate the value that these services provide to the community”. Pharmacy Voice has also released a briefing sheet to help LPCs who are struggling with this issue.

In light of the findings, PV is renewing its call for community pharmacists to have access to electronic patient records.