Cholesterol testing at UK pharmacies Feb 19, 2024....
Janet Morrison: I will try not to go on too long. Basically, there are quite a lot of areas we could see pharmacy providing more services in. Pharmacy First was accompanied by an expansion in blood pressure services and oral contraception services. Both of those could be built into wider services. Blood pressure could go into hypertension management, cholesterol management and atrial fibrillation. You could see the links to people with diabetes as well. That would make sense as a build in the future. It would also make sense, building on oral contraception, to look at other forms of contraception, HRT, women’s health, weight management, PrEP and those sorts of issues. You could see a range of additional services.
Ideally, pharmacies should not be viewed in isolation from other parts of the primary care system. One thing that frustrates us about the introduction of the additional roles reimbursement scheme—ARRS—was that they were recruiting people into GP surgeries, rather than working in partnership with the pharmacy that was right outside the door. That goes for wider professions, allied health professionals and community health that could all be working in a more integrated manner. Some pharmacies that have really pressed ahead have built a range of consultation rooms and do have other health professionals working within them, including physios, in some cases GPs and things like that.
There is huge scope to look at building, rather than these isolated pockets, interdisciplinary teams. We would love to see that. At the moment, we are quite a long way away from it. The question is, “Are you led by which services you would like to develop or by the infrastructure you want to create?” It probably has to go hand in hand.
Helen Kirrane: I would echo a lot of that. Already, many pharmacies can help to provide some of the annual checks that people with diabetes need on a regular basis and might be able to get in a more accessible setting, such as tests like HbA1c checks, weight checks, blood pressure and cholesterol checks. There is a lot of potential for greater support and services in community pharmacy, but also for the role of pharmacy in primary care. Embedding pharmacists in a really multidisciplinary diabetes team within primary care is really important. I would agree that it depends on the infrastructure you are going to set up, but the role of pharmacists is key in diabetes management and could be really expanded upon.
https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/14386/html/