Tag: pharmacists

Talk about pharmacists, not pharmacies!

I spent yesterday evening at a CPPE event in Teeside entitled “Communicating locally with commissioners and GP consortia” The evening was enjoyable and informative but one thing struck me about the presentation that was given by the evening’s expert. He talked about GP’s and how they are affected by all the NHS changes but also about how they will affect pharmacy and pharmacies. He emphasised the need for pharmacies to talk to GP’s

What’s wrong with that I hear you say? Well, GP’s are people and pharmacies are bricks and mortar so to be facetious, that’s never going to be possible! More seriously I made the point that I believe this is our weakness as a profession. We talk about shops and  The Profession but not about the professionals that run them i.e. you and me – pharmacists.

The changes that are coming at us thick and fast at present, especially the White Paper  “Equity and excellence – liberating the NHS“  and these changes have the potential to change things for the better for pharmacists but we need to stop thinking about bricks and mortar and think of ourselves.

The business of pharmacy is important but leave that to your area and regional managers. Focus of making things better for the patients you serve every day and find out about what is going on in your local area. Read the local Pharmaceutical Needs Assessment , what can you do as a pharmacist to plug any gaps in identified in the PNA?

If you focus on making life better for your patients and engage with local commissioners everything will be fine. People build relationships with people, not shops so start building your relationships with your local surgery, talk to your local authority, talk to your local LPC. Heaven forbid, you could even talk to each other. Remember the pharmacists who works down the road for multiple X is probably under the same stresses as you in multiple Y and even independent pharmacy Z.

Pharmacists have a fantastic future ahead of them, if the grab the nettle now and focus on themselves and deliver real benefits for their patients and local commissioners.