It is “essential” that community pharmacists upgrade their skills for dealing with child patients in the wake of a new report, a hospital pharmacist has said.

In a joint report, the Royal College of GPs (RCGP) and two other royal colleges said that no child should be cared for in hospital if they could receive “an equivalent or better standard of care” elsewhere.

Steve Tomlin, consultant pharmacist for children’s services at Evelina Children’s Hospital in London, said community pharmacists needed to “pick up on this report in a positive way”. “With pharmacies on every high street, it is essential that pharmacists enhance their skills to be able to provide better support for children with long-term conditions and minor ailments,” he told C+D on Friday (May 1).

Mr Tomlin stressed that the sector was in a “perfect place to prevent problems with medicines in chronic care” and could also “reduce large numbers of unnecessary or inappropriate A&E attendances”.

Hospital pharmacists needed to “embrace the idea that patients being discharged are just transitioning” and ensure children received “seamless” care in the community, he added.

In their report, published last week (April 29), the RCGP, the Royal College of Nursing and the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) called for every child to have access to “high quality unscheduled care services”. Commissioners of community health services needed to work with GPs and hospitals to “design and deliver efficient and effective unscheduled care in a geographical network”, they said.

They also set out 11 standards for caring for children, including a recommendation for health professionals treating children with unscheduled care needs in any setting to have access to their electronic patient record.

RCPCH president Hilary Cass said healthcare professionals needed to “help parents navigate the options available to them and get the most appropriate care”. She also stressed the need to make sure these health professionals were “fully skilled and equipped to deliver the best care possible”.

Last month, C+D reported on a Liverpool hospital pilot that was encouraging local community pharmacists to end the "stigma" around delivering asthma MURs to children.
 

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