Integrating hospital consultants into primary care can improve the management of chronic conditions and reduce hospital waiting times, says the King’s Fund in a report published on 22 October 2014.
The think tank highlights, in one of six case studies, how specialist pharmacists can support hospital consultants working in the community to keep patients out of hospital.
The case study, which accompanies the report ‘Specialists in out-of-hospital settings: findings from six case studies’, describes how a respiratory pharmacist has been recruited to three community respiratory teams established by Whittington Health NHS Trust in London to treat people with respiratory disease outside of hospital.
The teams are led by two specialist respiratory hospital consultants and the scheme is put forward as one of six examples illustrating the potential of integrating hospital consultants into primary care.
In the Whittington case, the consultants work with the teams to spread their expertise and also to support other healthcare professionals to treat patients in the community.
