THE PROFESSIONALS

Russell Goodway, Community Pharmacy Wales

ANDREW Evans, the chief pharmaceutical officer for Wales, said recently in a piece for Chemist and Druggist: “There has never been a time when the expectations of pharmacy professionals have been so great, and pharmacists’ standing so high.”

He has a real point. A career in pharmacy in Wales has never looked so promising.

Over the past few years the greater utilisation of the community pharmacy sector has begun a revolution of sorts within the profession.

In a few short years we have seen the power of innovation in community pharmacy in Wales; how ideas and schemes can change the face of a profession.

The most notable recent initiative unveiled was the Choose Pharmacy IT platform which has now been extended to almost every community pharmacy in Wales.

It has been set up in order to extend the role of the community pharmacist in aiding patients with minor ailments.

Here at the end of 2018, Choose Pharmacy is now available in 561 pharmacies, which makes up 80% of the country, and 480 of them deliver the Common Ailments service.

As Mr Evans mentioned in his article, this service will soon be utilised in all pharmacies across Wales.

Health boards are also planning a “sore throat test and treat service” which aims to relieve pressure on GPs without affecting antimicrobial resistance.

This scheme will be used by potentially 70 pharmacies in Wales and will test whether a patient’s sore throat is bacterial or viral and provide appropriate treatment on the NHS.

Community pharmacy enhancement has released a great deal of the strain on our NHS services and is in stark contrast to England, where there is no minor ailments scheme put in place.

With the Choose Pharmacy scheme promised to run until 2020 fully funded, and Andrew Evans’ admirable work sitting in on the board responsible for reviewing pharmacy legislation and policy development, there is a huge beacon of light at the end of the tunnel.

There are enormous upsides in community pharmacy, and we need more than ever to shine a light on these opportunities for young people interested in a career in pharmacy here in Wales.

In these times of change, innovation is key and the direction of travel is clear.

Through schemes like Choose Pharmacy and Choose Well, which highlights the role of the community pharmacy sector in taking pressure off GPs during the winter months, the value of the profession is increasingly utilised.

This gives community pharmacists more independence, more value, and more status than ever before.

Andrew Evans hit the nail on the head with his comments in Chemist and Druggist, that: “we have to close the competence gap that exists between how pharmacists have been practising historically, and how we want them to practise in the future.”

Clearly this broad vision and desire for change and innovation has been instrumental in keeping Wales at the forefront of pharmacy’s recent significant improvements.

Andrew Evans also noted in his article: “The profession needs to learn the reason that legislation was brought through was to promote learning and an open, transparent culture so we can improve safety. While health policy might be devolved across parts of the UK, professionally, we don’t work in those boundaries, we work across them.”

With the ongoing hard work between organisations, I am hopeful that we are seeing just the first few steps of what is going to be enormous, and pivotal, change for community pharmacy across the whole of Wales.