Medicine and Health Clifford

Question: Discuss about the role in medicine dispensing and advice providing on the use of the medicines. Answer: Clifford et al. (2010) stated that community pharmacy has an important role in medicine dispensing and advice providing on the use of the medicines, promoting good health along with supporting the prevention agenda. The community pharmacy helps those people in their wellbeing and self care who has undergone any major operation. Being a part of the integral models of local care, the community pharmacy has to serve a greater purpose of the present condition of the health of society. The roles of the medicine community involves the optimization of the medication usage, supporting the people with long term medical treatment as well as with minor illness and injuries and overall promoting a good health and prevention of ill-health. Integrating with wider healthcare and social system in order to relieve the pressure on accident and emergency departments is the goal of the community pharmacy. Reduced funding has become an issue that is putting a challenge to the care service of the communit y pharmacy. In 2015 to 2016, NHS funded a remuneration funding of 2.8 billion for the community pharmacy. An amount of 2.8 from that is utilized for the allowances, 2 is utilized as fees and for the reimbursement of drug, 800 m was used. However, a declaration of saving 22 billion was made by the NHS and the importance of the role of community pharmacy can be understood based on this context. Since 2003, an increment in the number of pharmacies occurred by 20%. The decreased efficiency of community pharmacies is not acceptable by government in spite of cutting their fund. But the efficiencies of the community pharmacies are not going to decrease because of the well maintenance of patient access in the pharmacies. The pharmacies that are funded by NHS are able to qualify a higher amount of fees without considering the service provided by them. The maximum numbers of community pharmacies do not have an effective and efficient dispensing arrangement and the service and quality of care are also not up to the mark. Community pharmacy has an infrastructure that is not well enough to adjust with low funding and new circumstances. That is why it is not easy for them to maintain or provide a quality service. Sir David Nicholson, the Chief Executive of NHS, focuses on lowering the fund of community pharmacy maintaining the same level of quality service. The Chief Executive addressed this as his new challenge. After his retirement, Simon Stevens took the position and adapted the same policy that is reducing the fund without affecting the service quality. Therefore, the same question arises again that if it is possible to maintain the quality in spite of a low funding. As the cut of the funding is significant, it is not easy to maintain the quality. As per NHS, the Chief Executive has declared to cut down an amount of 170 million from the annual funding and this statement of Sir Nicholson had an immense reaction on the press and on the common people. According to the mailOnline, a cut of 170 million will cause the termination of one fourth of the chemists which will result into an increasing pressure on the AEs. It has been stated in the pharmaceutical journal that due to the cuts in the annual fund by the government, the pharmaceutical community will be facing a huge trouble. The community pharmacy has asked for support to the public and different social media to protest against this. They also planned to visit the local decision makers including the MPs, the groups of patients and local press for support. The reduction in the funding should be 2.8 to 2.36 billion that is more than 6% in terms of cash. In order to support the community pharmacy in such situation, PSNC has agreed to discuss NHS and DH as they could not be able to provide some particular proposals. The community pharmacy took several steps to adjust with the situation like, optimization in of the medicines, supporting the people with long term conditions, treatment of minor illness of injury, prevention of ill health and promotion of good health. Besides these, the pharmacies are also planning to reduce the budget of the pharmacy care packages that are offered by them, which can be helpful to maintain their sustainability. For providing the care facilities in a better way, the community pharmacy took many steps and those got very much appreciation from the common people. The steps include support for medicine optimization, implementing the MUR type conversation and interventions of NMS type. In order to reduce the medicine wastage, the pharmacies started the synchronization of the medicines of the patients. In order to indicate the effect of pharmacy intervention, community pharmacy is using Patient Activation Measures and adherence scores along with educating the patient about the right usage of medications. Enhanced community pharmacy care package is one new package that is implemented by the community pharmacy for the wellbeing of the patients which were appreciated by the patients as well as by their care givers. The community pharmacy has always attempted to provide its best services to the patients. The current news says that the funding that is cut by the government is more than 6% of the annual funding of community pharmacy. The community pharmacy has been put into a very complicated position due this announcement, which states that the annual funding of 170 million is going to be cut by the government from their annual funding. The community pharmacy has received help from the PSNC and then found several steps that can be helpful for the community pharmacy to serve the patient without any compromise in the quality. On the other side, it was evidenced that the press, the newspaper along with the common people are raising voice against the fund reduction by the government and it is a positive sign for the community pharmacy. In England the Nation Health Services is a healthcare system that is funded publicly. NHS is primarily funded by the general system of taxation and the health providers of all the residents of UK. According to the report of 2009, it has been noted that there are 10475 number of community pharmacies in England. In the year 2010 to 2011 a 2.49 billion pounds were funded to the community pharmacies. Out of this amount, they made a profit of 0.5 billion pound as per the Health Department. Services like health promotion, medicine disposal, dispensing, advices related to lifestyle, support for self care and other health related services are provided by the Community services. For the improvement and sustainability of patient services, the pharmacy needs to take up actions and they are providing some advanced services to the patients. The present writing is to advise advice the general director of NHS about the aspects of adverse situation of funding and the importance of the pharmacies in the community that will direct to the path to mobilize the pharmacies. In England, there is a rise in the number of pharmacies to 11,600 in 2015 and every year there are one billion prescriptions in those pharmacies. 48% of the pharmacies are chain retailers who have store of 100 and above. Among the others, 39% of the pharmacies are independent and rest 13 % pharmacies are chain retailers and the numbers of their stores are ranging from 6 to 99. The recent report states that the ministry will reduce the funding of the pharmacies in order to reduce their number. For the majority of their income, the pharmacies rely and depend on the NHS. A cut of 170 pounds has been decided to be done for the stores of high street in the October of 2016. This is a short sighted decision and is potential for depriving a large number of those patients, who have a need of the trusted healthcare services. However, according to the government, there are a number of pharmacies that has grown in an inappropriate manner and there are no additional benefits of having such a larg e number of pharmacies. It has been decided that along with the reduction in budget the closing of about two thousand pharmacies will be done in this year. The development of NHS is a very important aspect of the United Kingdom and the concerned authority is paying attention to address and identify the issues that are related to the recent scenario of healthcare. Recommendation is needed from the government for NHS to mobilize the community pharmacies. First of all the aspect that is needed to be considered is that the pharmacy must be approved by the NHS and the main potential for a better utilization of community pharmacy is strengthening a healthy life and disease prevention. For promoting the good pharmacy practices there should be a service in the community pharmacy that is clinically focused. The pressure on the emergency departments and general physician is released due to the community pharmacies. It also ensures a better patient outcome as well as an optimum use of medicines. It can be an ideal way to deliver seven-day healthcare. Assigning the clinical pharmacists in the practices of general physician can be a very good approach to promote the pharmacies and the pharmacists in the short-term. Prior to this the pharmacies must be brought together to the wide primary care. The pharmacists apply their skills for the more general practices and they must use the scopes for the protection and improvement of the health of common people along with an alignment of the emerging patient care model. A discussion should take place about the fact transforming the community pharmacies that operates in NHS to bring the distinct and clear public benefits by means of the best funding. Community pharmacies should play its essential role to deliver the support and efficiencies that are needed by the government for the required productivity and efficiency. The NHS must assure that community pharmacies, on which a number of people depend on, have to sustain. The NHS should allocate more funds for certain pharmacies and must consider the factors that are related to the health needs of the people and the community location. To drive the innovative models appropriately for making the orders of prescriptions and collection of the medicines disposed of. All the pharmacies should have the access to the hub and spoke dispensing efficiency. The changes in legislation will reduce the cost of operation and will provide more clinical and public health services. The opinions and views of pharmacy sectors are also considered for the innovative arrangement that supports the efficiency and patient services. The service quality can remain the same with enhanced effectiveness. There s hould not be too many pharmacies in one place, so that they can get focused by the people of that particular locality and there should be access for all communities. For maintaining both public access and the pursuing efficiencies, the advanced, automated large scale dispensing arrangements can be implemented. The government indication says that the budget is going to be reduced for the pharmacies and this reduction will occur from 2016. The community pharmacies has a desire to work along with each other for the delivery of a good healthcare to them and it is also important for them to have a good access to the pharmaceutical services by the means of online service or local community pharmacies. This will enhance the present practices of pharmacy to transform into a more clinically focused community pharmacy. With an integrated primary care the pharmacists will have a better role to play across the NHS. The entire process of improving and protecting peoples health will design the role of community pharmacies in NHS. However the priority will always remain the same that is to give benefit to the public.