It’s not what you do, it’s the way you do it

Whenever I talk to a doctor about any new services, I get the same answer you are trying to take over our jobs. I always use the same reply " I am not sure if I am taking over your jobs but be assured that I will never take as much money as you". I don't know why some doctors pretend that they are threatened by us. Our duty of care is looking after the patient's interest not trying to find a fault with doctors although at times it may appear so. Treatment now is very advanced and complicated, doctors autonomy of treatment is impossible despite some of them being too proud to admit this fact.

Michael Manning,Superintendent Pharmacist
Peter has obviously uncovered some very important information.All community pharmacists regularly contact GP practices,and often,it is needed in order to protect or to intervene in some way in the best interests of the patient.However the real problem is that we have no standard systems or rules about recording these interventions.Although many of us will note an important intervention on our PMR,unless we systematically record all of this and present it to the PCTs we will never be able to demonstrate how much of this work that we all do every single day that we practice.