RPS chair: GP practice role will help develop clinical future for the profession

David Branford

Recruiting pharmacists to work in GP surgeries will advance the profession’s broader aim of securing a greater clinical role in direct patient care, according to David Branford, chair of the English Pharmacy Board of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS).

Branford said the joint initiative from the RPS and the Royal College of General Practitioners would help answer the challenge posed by the independent Commission on Future Models of Care, led by the Nuffield Trust’s Judith Smith, in the ‘Now or Never’ and ‘Now More Than Ever’ reports. The commission called for pharmacy to safeguard its future by adopting more caregiving roles.

Launching the initiative at The King’s Fund in London on 17 March 2015, Branford said: “Judith Smith from the Nuffield Trust challenged us to get serious about our desire for a clinical role in primary care. I can assure both Judith and all of you here [that] we at the RPS are deadly serious and it is our number one priority.

“We have been championing the cause of a greater clinical role for pharmacists across all our sectors by focusing on specific areas of the NHS where we believe we can really make a big impact on patient care,” he said, saying that the RPS had already promoted
clinical roles for pharmacists in urgent and emergency care
.

“Both pharmacists and GPs have a common interest in treating and managing illnesses by using medicines in a way that enhances people’s lives. I believe this is most likely to be achieved by bringing our two professions together.”

The joint proposal forms
 part of a new English Pharmacy Board campaign
 to expand the use of pharmacists’ clinical expertise in primary care.

Last updated
Citation
The Pharmaceutical Journal, RPS chair: GP practice role will help develop clinical future for the profession;Online:DOI:10.1211/PJ.2015.20068211

You may also be interested in