Should locum pharmacists be given MUR targets?
Mr A.R. Barber’s comments in the PJ (March 7th) regarding locum pharmacists being given targets for MUR’s raised lots of comments in this weeks PJ.
Both locums and contractors disagreed with Mr Barbers assertion that locums are obliged to carry our MUR’s to help the pharmacy/company achieve it’s targets of 400 reviews a year.
Frustrated pharmacist
I completely support the comments made by the respondees but it saddens me that MR Barber seems to have forgotten what he want to University to become. I’m sure he was taught about pharmacy law and ethics and about working as a professional, standing by your convictions even if all around you are asking you to do something else. He seems to have gone over to the “Dark Side” focusing primarily on profit, not care for patients.
I know that as we approach the end of the financial year, multiple operators across the UK will be pressurising employee and locum pharmacists alike to reach the magic 400 MUR figure, but this kind of target setting for professional services can never site comfortably with professionalism. It’s the kind of target that fits much better with supermarket 3 for 2 targets than a professional service, delivered by professional people.
Unfortunately this is only going to get worse as we move into an increasingly multiple dominated world of UK pharmacy,unless pharmacists themselves stand up to be counted. I’ve mentioned before about my concept of an Independent Pharmacist Practitioner (IPP). One that is engaged on a contract for services by the PCT to deliver targeted professional services to a given population. The IPP will then agree to provide these services in the premises of a local contractor but answer to the NHS via the PCT.
This concept will completely split the professional side of pharmacy from the business side. Contractors are left to negotiate the best deals with suppliers to maximise profit and can invest in their premises to allow their IPP to fulfil advanced and enhanced services identified as necessary by the local PCT. Meanwhile pharmacists are left to practice their profession safe in the knowledge that they are independent of the contractor and beholden only to the PCT for professional services.
Let me know that you think.
No related posts.
Category: Default
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
I’d love to be a pharmacotherapist rather than a supply clerk; however this ignores the fact that we were always supposed to be so much more than a medicines supply clerk. It’s a shame that’s what the current community structure is forcing us into.
Was it always so? But these days, you don’t get profits from supplying as many items as inhumanly possible or offering free compliance aids if you bulk order your prescriptions through us.
I totally agree the profession is being tarnished with a clinical role (if you define MURs as such) being seen as something to be sold as often as possible for as little cost as possible.
But if you ignore the fact that we have the expertise and can be trusted with supplying medicines, would others say that we are over-educated yet underqualified medicines management nurses?