One hundred and twenty-eight unpaid carers who could benefit from pharmacy support have been identified in a pilot by PSNC and charity Carers Trust. 

Forty-four pharmacies across nine LPCs are involved in the four-month Carer-Friendly Pharmacy initiative, which launched in November. Pharmacists taking part were working to identify and support carers, and in some cases refer them to other relevant resources in the area, PSNC said last week (January 27). 

Seventy-two per cent of the carers indentified so far had been referred to a GP, and 81 per cent had requested an information pack, PSNC said.

The pharmacy pilot was aligned with NHS England’s Five Year Forward View document, published last year, which set out plans to improve engagement with carers, PSNC said. The initiative formed part of a wider programme funded by the Department of Health to support carers with the help of the Royal College of GPs and charity Carers UK, it said.

Carer champions

Participating pharmacies had trained their staff to be sensitive to carers' needs, with one member of the pharmacy team identified as a "carers champion", PSNC said. This individual led referrals and acted as a contact point for external agencies and GP practices, it said.

The pilot, which would be evaluated by Leeds University when it ended on February 28, could be amended in certain areas to allow health checks or flu vaccinations to be offered to carers, PSNC said. 

PSNC head of NHS services Alastair Buxton said the initial results of the project had "already demonstrated the importance of a collaborative approach to support services". "We hope this pilot will help us build the evidence base for the commissioning of carer identification and support services from community pharmacies in the future," he added. 

Sunil Kochhar, owner of Regent Pharmacy in Gravesend, which is taking part in the pilot, told C+D that pharmacy staff had undergone a training session with the Carers Trust to understand how to engage and indentify carers. "We would ask particular questions to people coming in and once we identified them as a carer, we enrolled them on the Carers Trust database with their consent,” he said.

Mr Kochhar said he had been shocked by the number of carers who were children and he now realised the "potential of pharmacy to help and support" all individuals who took on this role.
 

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