THE DOCTOR MIGHT NOT BE ABLE TO SEE YOU NOW — BUT A PHARMACIST CAN
The problems that they are qualified to resolve may surprise you
Troubled by a cough, a sore throat, tummy trouble or general aches and pains? before rushing to the GP, the NHS is encouraging patients to seek the advice of a pharmacist.
Last year NHS England launched the ‘Stay Well Pharmacy’ campaign to encourage people to visit their pharmacist in a bid to reduce the 18 million GP appointments and 2.1 million turning up at A&E each year for conditions you can treat yourself.
If the problem can’t be resolved by the pharmacist, they’ll redirect you to a doctor. But the problems they are qualified to resolve may surprise you.
The fact is, going to the pharmacy these days is so much more than simply picking up a prescription.
As well as a wide range of health and beauty products, High Street chemists now offer a variety of NHS and private healthcare services, including winter flu vaccinations, smoking cessation support and online prescription ordering.
And a few, such as Boots, also provide additional health services — such as a ‘check and treat’ service for urinary tract infections — where you can test yourself in the privacy of your own home, then get a prescription from the pharmacist, if required — as well as travel vaccinations, mole-scanning and video consultations with a private GP.
Moving healthcare services traditionally offered by GP practices to High Street pharmacies is part of a national plan to make healthcare more convenient and accessible to patients.
Currently it takes on average 15 days to get an appointment with a GP, and GP opening hours often don’t fit around people’s busy working lives.
But pharmacies, in shopping centres, train stations and on High Streets, can offer a convenient place to receive some types of medical help and advice — and pharmacists at Boots are now undergoing additional training so they can offer advice and treatment for a wider range of conditions including giving meningitis B vaccinations to children. PHArMACISTS
are regulated by the General Pharmaceutical Council and all private medical services, including those provided by Boots, are monitored by the Care Standards Commission, to ensure they are safe and meet national standards.
‘Pharmacies are one of the healthcare providers where you can just walk in and speak to someone about your concern,’ explains richard Bradley, pharmacy director at Boots.
‘With increasing pressure on it, the NHS needs more from community pharmacists and patients need more care from their High Street chemist.’
Boots has stores around the country; more than 2,400 pharmacies, 600 opticians and 500 hearing care locations. It employs 62,000 people, including 6,500 pharmacists, and dispenses 220 million items of medication a year. Boots says that 90 per cent of the UK population is within a tenminute drive of one of its stores and Boots’ new plans offering a wider range of healthcare services are part of a drive to modernise the company and provide the 41 per cent of people in the UK who use Boots pharmacy with more comprehensive care.
A cornerstone new service is the Boots Free Online NHS repeat Prescription Service launched in April. It allows patients to order a repeat prescription through the Boots app or website and pick it up or have it delivered for free.
At 600 pharmacies, there are now dedicated express lanes to pick up prescriptions ordered online which promise a wait of ‘two minutes or less’. And two stores are carrying out a trial to allow patients to pick up their medication from secure lockers.
richard Bradley says the online initiative has been welcomed by patients ‘across the board’.
‘We have patients of all ages using the service — including one who is 96,’ he says.
Another initiative is the ‘check and treat’ service for urinary tract infections (or UTI such as cystitis) — which affect up to 50 per cent of women at some point. Symptoms include pain, burning or stinging when passing urine and cloudy urine.
Patients are asked a few simple questions by the pharmacist and if this sounds like an uncomplicated UTI — with no blood in their urine or high temperature — they can buy a self-testing kit for £10.
To use this they download an app, which turns a smartphone camera into a ‘clinical grade analyser’ — like one they use in labs — which checks the colour of urine against a grading chart. If there is an infection, urine tends to be cloudy and darker.
This helps patients identify within minutes if they have an infection from the comfort of their own homes.
Mild infections may clear up on their own, but if the results suggest a more severe infection, patients can go back to the pharmacist who can offer advice and prescribe, if suitable, a three-day course of the antibiotic nitrofurantoin (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended first-line treatment for UTIs) at a further cost of £15. results from a seven-month pilot study by Boots in 2018 revealed 96 per cent of the 1,000 women who used it found the test kit easy to use. Almost 300 stores now offer the service. ANOTHEr
trial, launched in September, is offering video consultations between private GPs and the patient when they’re in a Boots pharmacy.
In collaboration with LIVI, which provides video consultations with GPs based in England, and using a confidential consultation room and instore tablet computer, patients can have a video consultation with a GP, who can provide medical advice, and a prescription and referrals if needed, at a time that is convenient to them.
Pharmacists may help during the consultation by carrying out basic checks, for example a blood pressure reading, for the GP to help with their diagnosis or before prescribing medication. By having these checks done in store by a pharmacist, it can allow patients to have their health concern resolved in some circumstances without the need to visit their GP surgery.
‘Many consultations can be carried out by questioning rather than examining the patient,’ says richard Bradley.
‘With this service, the patient has the same checks done as they would do in a GP surgery, but instead they are done by a trained pharmacist who can tell the GP the results via video-link.’
The private skin and molescanning services, available in around 50 Boots stores, use a special scanner to take an image of the area of concern and this is sent directly to a consultant dermatologist for diagnosis. results are sent to patients within a week for moles, and two days for skin conditions.
The scans cover conditions such as acne, eczema, rosacea, ringworm and psoriasis, and are suitable for adults and children aged two and above. If a treatment is recommended by the dermatologist, a private prescription can be obtained through Boots.
Mole scanning is only for adults over the age of 18.
Most of these additional services are provided privately and so incur a charge; the check and treat service for UTIs costs up to £25, scanning a single mole is £35 and a private flu jab is £12.99.
Although flu vaccinations are available everywhere, generally it is the bigger stores that offer these new services.
‘In ten years’ time, pharmacy services at Boots will be almost unrecognisable; pharmacists will spend less time dispensing and more time offering clinical services,’ says richard Bradley.
‘Through our investment in digitising pharmacy, our pharmacists will have more time to bring even greater value to the overall primary care system, offering greater choice and access to healthcare.
‘Our message to patients is that if you come to us with a health problem, we may very well be able to help you out.’