IPA board member Ian Strachan yesterday (October 12) told delegates at the Pharmacy Show in Birmingham that he is “not getting carried away with independent prescribing (IP)”.
When asked by new Community Pharmacy England (CPE) director of research and insights Dr James Davies whether “we are ready for [the] IP revolution” with pharmacists taking workload out of general practice and hospitals, Strachan shook his head and said “no”.
Read more: ‘Game-changer’: Boots sets out ‘ambition’ for IP in every store
“Integration can only go at the speed of trust,” he said, adding that multidisciplinary working is “not there” in the wider NHS.
“A lot of this is going to require some big cultural change - it’s alright having the [IP] qualification so that we are in the right place to do this, but we’re not there yet,” he told delegates.
Strachan, who is also pharmacy group owner at Strachan’s Chemists, pointed to the “latest episode” with a controversial letter sent by GPs about Pharmacy First.
“No funding earmarked”
Also speaking in the panel discussion, National Pharmacy Association (NPA) chair and IP Olivier Picard stressed that “with the right level of funding and the right level of support”, IPs can deliver services “quicker and better” than many other healthcare professionals.
He said that the “shift to services [is] required” but that contractors need “skill mix” in their workforce as IPs “can’t do everything” in their pharmacy, as well as a “booking system”.
“When you take the example of the weight loss service…this is something that we can do - we don’t need to have that anywhere else, but we can’t do this within the current [funding] envelope…we need the government to invest in us,” Picard added.
Read more: Day Lewis: Pharmacy doesn’t need ‘new contract’ but ‘tweaks’
But Company Chemists’ Association (CCA) chief executive Malcolm Harrison said that while the sector can “infer an idea of where the government wants to go”, there is “no funding really being earmarked for this”.
“If there is no new funding - and I don’t believe there is a money tree that our Chancellor is going to find - what we need is a really clear and articulate vision and direction from the government and from the NHS as to what they want community pharmacy to do,” he added.
Read more: BMA distances itself from controversial Pharmacy First letter
“We need the government to invest, as we said, but we also need confidence that we can get investment from outside the NHS into our businesses,” Harrison told delegates.
It comes as Boots’ director of pharmacy growth yesterday revealed that the chain’s “ambition” is to have independent prescribers (IPs) in all of its stores.
