DAUK\u2019s Dr Steve Taylor has warned expanding the role of pharmacies in diagnosing and prescribing for common conditions risks some conditions being missed<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Taylor, GP co-lead for the Doctors\u2019 Association UK (DAUK) said the proposals reflect wider failures to properly fund general practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was responding to the Government\u2019s announcement of a \u00a3340 million expansion of the Pharmacy First scheme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Taylor acknowledged that pharmacies \u2018form an integral part of Primary Care\u2019 and for decades have \u2018provided advice and guidance to patients\u2019, despite being \u2018significantly underfunded\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHowever there are significant concerns that diagnosis and management of even \u2018simple\u2019 conditions might mean things are missed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Government says the changes, due to come into force this autumn, will allow more pharmacists with prescribing qualifications to treat patients directly without referral to a GP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Five new conditions are expected to be added to the Pharmacy First scheme, although ministers have yet to confirm details.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr Taylor said: “If Pharmacies and GP practices were funded in proportion to the need then there would be no need for Pharmacy First as access to GPs would be there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cEven the 3.3 million Pharmacy First consultations over the past 12 months needs to be put in context. This represents less than 1% of GP practice consultations of 1.5million a day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe broader question is whether pharmacies are the best place to put diagnosis and prescribing, or whether this is better in GP practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cExperienced pharmacists are likely to be more likely to know what they don\u2019t know, it is debatable whether this can be true for all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
DAUK is run by frontline doctors for frontline doctors. Please support our work by\u00a0joining DAUK<\/a>\u00a0or donating to\u00a0our GoFundMe<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" DAUK\u2019s Dr Steve Taylor has warned expanding the role of pharmacies in diagnosing and prescribing for common conditions risks some conditions being missed Dr Taylor,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[22,61,752],"class_list":["post-3272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general-practice","tag-dr-steve-taylor","tag-general-practice","tag-pharmacy-first"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3274,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3272\/revisions\/3274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dauk.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}