Medication Adherence And Community Pharmacy

Question: Explain about the Medication Adherence and Community Pharmacy? Answer: The Role Of Community Pharmacy In The Face Of Funding Cuts Of The Magnitude Of £170M This Year To Improve Patient Services According to Clifford et al. (2010), Community pharmacy plays a vital role in dispensing medicines, providing advice on medicines use, promotion of good health as well as providing support the prevention agenda. The community pharmacy also supports people to take care of themselves, who went through major operations. However, considering the present condition, it can be said that the community pharmacy needs to play a greater role as part of the “integral local care models.” These “greater roles” may include optimizing usage of medicines, provide support to the people with long-term conditions, treat minor injuries and illness, prevent ill-health and promote good health (2). The vision of the community pharmacy is to integrate with the wider social and healthcare system, which in turn will be helpful to relieve pressure on emergency departments, accident department as well as GPs. However, it is found that the reducing of funding for the community pharmacy is inhibiting them to provide their best care service for the patients. According to the NHS, in 2015/16, the NHS provided £2.8 bn on “remuneration funding” for the community pharmacy. From this £2.8, £2 is used for allowances and fees and £800m is used for drug reimbursement (3). However, the NHS declared to save £22 billion by 2020/2021, in this context it is important to know the role played by the community pharmacy. The numbers of pharmacies had increased by 20% since 2003. Although the government is cutting the fund for the community pharmacy, they are not ready to accept the decrease of efficiencies of community pharmacy. However, there are several reasons to believe that the efficiency of the community pharmacies will not decrease. Such as there are huge too many pharmacies to maintain “good patient access.” On the other hand, most of the pharmacies under NHS funding are qualified for a high range of fees regardless of the quality service they provide. However, it is also found that most of the community pharmacies do not have efficient as well as effective dispensing arrangements, which have a deep impact on the quality care they supposed to provide. Apart from the fact that the community pharmacy has a good infrastructure to cope up with the new circumstances with less fund, it is also true that providing same efficient and effective quality service is not very easy task. The Chief Executive of NHS, Sir David Nicholson’s aim to cut down the fund for the community pharmacy but expect same efficient work from the community pharmacy. According to the Chief Executive of NHS, Sir David Nicholson this was his new “challenge.” On the other hand, when he retired Simon Stevens took his position and took similar venture, which is to reduce the funding for community pharmacy but expecting the same quality care (7). Therefore, the question remains same, is it possible to run same quality services in less funding? The answer is very complicated since the cut of money is not very “little”. According to the NHS, the Chief Executive decided to cut £170M in this year. When the Chief Executive of NHS, Sir David Nicholson announced to cut down about £170m the reaction from the press and common people were immense. According to mailOnline, “£170m cuts could kill off a QUARTER of our chemists – prompting a warning of even more pressure on A&Es (4)”. In the PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL, it is also stated: “Up to 3,000 pharmacies could close after government cuts, MPs warn.” Therefore, it can be said that the pharmaceutical community is going to face a “tough time” (5). To fight back in this situation, the community pharmacy is already asking for public support through different social media. They also took the initiative to visit MP’s and other local decision makers as well as to the local press and the patient groups to seek their support. According to the PSNC and NHS, the funding would be reduced from £2.8 bn to £2.63 bn, which is a reduction of more than 6% in cash terms (6). To help the community pharmacy in this situation, the PSNC agreed to provide discussion with the community pharmacy under NHS and DH as NHS and DH failed to provide specific proposals. To cope up with the situation, the community pharmacy took different steps, such as optimizing the se of medicines, provide support to the people with long-term conditions, treating minor injuries and illness, preventing ill-health and promoting good health. Besides, the pharmacies are also taking initiatives to change their pharmacy care package to reduce their budget, which can be considered as effective to maintain the sustainability of the community pharmacy. To provide better care facilities, the community pharmacy took many initiatives, which were appreciated by the common people. Such as providing medicines optimization support, implementation of the MUR-type conversation and NMS-type intervention. To reduce the wastage of medicine, the pharmacies also started to synchronize patient’s medicines. To indicate the impact of pharmacy interventions, the pharmacy is using adherence scores and PAM (Patient Activation Measure) as well as educating the patients to use correct dosage or amount of medicines (8). The community pharmacy is also trying to implement “enhanced community pharmacy care package” for the patients. The patients, as well as their caregivers hugely, appreciated this initiative step. The community pharmacy always tries their best to provide best services to the patients. On the other hand, based on the current news, the government is cutting of the funding of the community pharmacy, which is more than 6%. This announcement made the position of the community pharmacy very complicated. According to the new announcement, the government is going to cut £170M from the community pharmacy funding, which will certainly effect on the care services of the pharmacies. However, according to NHS, they are not going to accept any decrease in the care service quality. In this situation, the communist pharmacy accepted help from the PSNC and took several initiative steps to help the patients without decreasing their quality care. On the other hand, it was also found that the common people, as well is the newspapers, are raising their voice against the reduction of the fund for the community pharmacy, which is a positive sign. References Clifford S, Garfield S, Eliasson L, Barber N. Medication Adherence And Community Pharmacy: a review of education, policy and research in England. Pharm Pract (Internet). 2010 Apr 1;8(2):77-88. George K, Lovelady C, Connolly D, Parmar S, Davies MJ. Community pharmacy contribution to weight management: identifying opportunities. International Journal of Pharmacy Practice. 2010 Feb 1;18(1):7-12. co.uk. Government plans 6% cut to pharmacy funding : Independent Pharmacist [Internet]. 2016 [cited 25 February 2016]. Available from: https://www.independentpharmacist.co.uk/government-plans-6-cut-to-pharmacy-funding Mail Online. Home | Daily Mail Online [Internet]. 2016 [cited 25 February 2016]. Available from: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html Pharmaceutical-journal.com. The Pharmaceutical Journal news, information and learning resources on pharmacy and pharmaceutical sciences [Internet]. 2016 [cited 25 February 2016]. Available from: https://www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/ PSNC Main site. PSNC Main site [Internet]. 2016 [cited 25 February 2016]. Available from: https://psnc.org.uk/ co.uk. Loading… [Internet]. 2016 [cited 25 February 2016]. Available from: https://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/clinical-news/gp-practices-to-face-greater-demand-as-community-pharmacy-budget-is-cut/20030754.fullarticle Sunderland LPC. Christmas blow of 6% cuts to community pharmacy [Internet]. 2016 [cited 25 February 2016]. Available from: https://psnc.org.uk/sunderland-lpc/our-news/christmas-blow-of-6-cuts-to-community-pharmacy/

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