Journal of Pharmacy Management - Jan 2022

Journal of Pharmacy Management • Volume 38 • Issue 1 • January 2022 That works really well for him and the local practice because they've saved some appointments and he's got a list of appropriate patients that he can manage and slot in rather than themall having been sent to the pharmacy, stood outside queuing, waiting for him, putting pressure on him and creating a bad patient experience. And it seems to work really well actually. GB: That leads me to the question of direction, because I can imagine ina lot of places you've got a one-to-one relationship between the practice andapharmacyand there's no issueabout it. But what do you do when there's two pharmacies you could send them to? Or don't you have that problemyet? AM: We do now. The second pharmacy in Blaenau Ffestiniog was commissioned for the service a couple of months ago. I would expect the surgery to ask the patient which pharmacy they normally use and putting it on the relevant list. Those two do work well together. If there was less of a working relationship there you might need to have a formal agreement, because you've got to bear in mind that if ten people ring and they all are at one pharmacy and the pharmacy only can cope with five, it’s not appropriate for the surgery to then see those other five patients, the work needs to be distributed across the community pharmacy capacity available. It's important that when the pharmacist concludes the consultation, they offer the patient the option to have the prescription dispensed elsewhere. As far as I know, nobody has ever taken them up on it, but they must offer them that because the GPhC have indicated that they are comfortable with the idea of the pharmacist prescribing and being the responsible pharmacist for dispensing purposes, but only where there's clear separation of the process. You shouldn't be signing the prescription and then immediately walking into the dispensary and labelling a box and then bringing it back to the patient. That absolutely should not happen. What I would recommend to anybody is that you write the prescription, you hand it to the patient and you say if you would like this to be dispensed here, take it to the counter and they will organise that for you, or if you want to go elsewhere, you're welcome to leave the pharmacy and take it to another pharmacy. I think that gives you a really clear separation. It also concludes the consultation neatly. The pharmacist has a bit of time in the room to finish their notes. It makes it feel like separate consultation and supply processes. In theory the patient can take it elsewhere, but why would you? 34