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Pharmacy bodies have warned the profession not to forget the damning Which? report on over-the-counter medicines advice.
Pharmacy teams must provide consistent, high-quality medicines advice that puts patients "at the very heart" of their practice, said the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) and Independent Pharmacy Federation (IPF) at an event looking at lessons learned from last year's Which? findings on Thursday (July 3).
This would prevent the sector from facing a repeat of the report, which claimed two in five pharmacies were offering sub-standard OTC medicines advice last May, they argued.
The RPS and GPhC stressed that it was important for the whole pharmacy team to bear in mind both regulatory and professional standards.
The sector "mustn't lose sight of" the problems identified in the Which? report, said GPhC chief executive Duncan Rudkin. The GPhC would support pharmacy teams through its standards and guidance, but the results of future studies were in the hands of the profession ultimately, he stressed.
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RPS chief executive Helen Gordon echoed the comments. "I'm absolutely confident that progress is being made but clearly it's a journey, and there's more we want to do for our patients," she said.
IPF chair FinMcCaul said he had been "very, very concerned" about the Which? findings, which showed 58 per cent of the 48 independent pharmacies investigated had given unsatisfactory advice. He said the profession should avoid being defensive and instead learn from the criticism.
IPF training sessions held with Reckitt Benckiser between September and November last year had uncovered some gaps in practice, Mr McCaul revealed. "In training sessions, there was some real negativity about ‘why are you telling us this, we're not like that'," he said. "But, actually, when we got to the role play, they realised they were."
Mr McCaul argued that the government should fund pharmacies to carry out an expanded self-care role. "We believe that pharmacy – especially independent pharmacy – is a valuable resource in the community and we need to enable some of these changes," he stressed.
The argument was backed by NPA chief executive Mike Holden, who said the current funding situation made it "quite challenging" for pharmacy teams to deliver consistently high-quality OTC medicines advice.
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3 tips for improving OTC medicines advice
1. Recognise the value of your staff
Getting staff enthusiastic and involved was the starting point for boosting medicines advice, speakers stressed. They pointed out that counter assistants – the main point of contact for OTC medicines advice – were often on a low wage and felt undervalued. Ensuring they felt fully involved would make your pharmacy "much more successful", said RPS chief executive Helen Gordon.
2. Conversation, not interrogation
Pharmacy teams were often reluctant to use the full WWHAM questioning technique because patients felt "interrogated", said IPF chair Fin MCaul. He believed the key was to personalise the questions and make them sound conversational, rather than approaching it as a tick-box process. "It's about interpreting the sales process to ask, ‘is this the right medicine for you?'," he said.
3. Keep the momentum going
Mr McCaul recognised that it was easy to slip back into old habits. To prevent this from happening, he recommended consistently celebrating successes and running refresher training sessions in the team.
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How well do you think pharmacy has acted on the findings of the Which? report?
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