EXCLUSIVE

Pharmacy Voice has attacked NHS reforms as a "distraction" in response to findings that three quarters of patients do not understand the changes.

Only 26 per cent of 1,040 UK pharmacy users felt "aware and informed" about changes to the NHS commissioning system, a year after they came into effect, according to a survey published by management consultants Sempora Consulting last week (May 21).

Eighty-two per cent of participants disagreed with the statement that the reforms would "notably improve" the quality of the health services they used, Sempora Consulting said.

A year after they came into effect, the NHS reforms have been described as a 'distraction' by Pharmacy Voice	More on impact of the NHS reforms Lessons from the NHS reforms NHS reforms: the impact on pharmacy NHS reforms have neglected pharmacy so far, survey reveals
	Pharmacy Voice chief executive Rob Darracott said it was not the job of pharmacists to explain the "complicated" NHS changes to patients.

The reforms, which came into effect in April 2013, had been a "distraction at a time of financial challenge" for the health service, he told C+D.

"Pharmacists may wish to inform patients about how the reforms have made their jobs more difficult, or how the government seems insistent on denying [the] difficulties obtaining medicines for patients," he added

Independent Pharmacy Federation chairman Fin McCaul said patients cared about how their health care was delivered, not about the details of the reforms.

Pharmacists should be focusing on "patients and outcomes" rather than the NHS restructuring, he told C+D.

"The reforms have made an opportunity for a different way of working and it's for pharmacists and local organisations to get on board and deliver that differently," he added.

Sempora's survey results reflected C+D's findings last month, which revealed that pharmacists were disillusioned with the reforms. Three quarters of C+D readers surveyed did not feel the changes had led to the sector playing a bigger role or receiving more recognition from the rest of the health service.

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