‘Pharmacists need much more support and investment’

Russell George, Shadow Health Minister for the Welsh Conservatives, says it is time to make pharmacies a central pillar of healthcare in Wales...

IT is time to make pharmacies a central pillar of healthcare.

That’s what I said to the Labour Government in the Welsh Conservative debate last week when we urged Labour ministers to massively increase support and recognition for pharmacies in Wales as part of helping the NHS recover from the pandemic.

We as a party have long argued that pharmacies have a significant role in relieving pressure on other areas of the NHS, such as GP surgeries and A&E departments, where many people can languish for hours and clog up waiting times when a pharmacist could have helped them promptly instead.

In February, the Welsh NHS recorded its third worst month for A&E waits on record and only 55% of responses to immediately life-threatening ambulance calls arrived within eight minutes.

Only 22.6% of amber call patients – which include strokes – were reached within 30 minutes.

On top of that, the previous month saw its longest ever elective treatment waiting list, with a fifth of the population on one.

This only goes to demonstrate that we need to alleviate the pressures on hugely busy healthcare services and focus on delivering treatment closer to home, outside of hospital settings. So how can pharmacies help?

In August 2020, Community Pharmacy Wales (CPW) carried out an audit of pharmacy services and found, across 500 pharmacies, each one recorded an average of 15.5 consultations a day – leading CPW to estimate 11,000 advice consultations occur each day across all community pharmacies. The study also found pharmacies spent, on average, 99 minutes per day in consultations with patients and, of these consultations, 14% were referred to the GP practice.

If pharmacies had not been available, a staggering 53.2% of patients reported that they would have visited their GP in the first instance, resulting in an additional 35,300 surgery consultations a week – 86 appointments in each of the 410 GP practices per week. A further 3.1% would also have visited A&E or Minor Injuries Units, resulting in an increase of 2,000 appointments per week.

This just goes to show how valuable are to the NHS. But, sadly, many still don’t feel supported: the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s 2021 Workforce Wellbeing Survey found nine out of 10 respondents were at high risk of burnout, and one-in-three had considered leaving the profession altogether.

It is also essential that the industry is modernised because, while England and Scotland have been using e-prescribing for a decade, Labour has kept Wales in the dark ages, failing to act in the interest of patients. E-prescribing and sharing of medical records is not routinely available in Wales, meaning GPs and pharmacists spend less time working with and for patients.

That’s why we called on Labour ministers to urgently reduce bureaucracy by introducing e-prescriptions and provide access to medical records; ensure dedicated protected learning time within working hours for wellbeing and study; and invest in the pharmacy workforce to train more pharmacy staff and upskill existing staff.

Pharmacies deserve thanks for the crucial role they have played during the pandemic, supporting primary and secondary care, especially when Welsh pharmacists also face levels of bureaucracy unlike anywhere else in the UK.

They supported the national rollout of the Covid vaccine, helping getting jabs in arms so the United Kingdom can get back to normal and move on from the pandemic, while also reducing visits to GP surgeries at a time of intense pressure on the NHS.

Given we know the valuable roll they can play in delivering directly for patients and relieving pressures elsewhere in the NHS, pharmacists need much more support and investment from the Labour Government, including significantly more training spots.

So, we were delighted to receive universal support for our proposals from across the Senedd. The merits of the argument are clear to see and, hopefully, it will give ministers the jolt they need to act so pharmacists and patients get what they need.