The first pharmacist able to write a prescription as a supplementary prescriber in England will today be running her first clinic in Derby, announced Health Minister Rosie Winterton in a speech to the North Yorkshire Local Pharmaceutical Committee.
Rosie Winterton said:
"I'm pleased that this significant milestone has today been reached for pharmacists as supplementary prescribers. This week, Lorna Davies in Derby becomes the first pharmacist to be prescribing in the community. She wrote her first prescriptions today.
"I am delighted that the prescribing pharmacists are now bringing their expertise to the aid of both patients and doctors alike. Pharmacists are a highly skilled, well trained, but often under-used resource within the NHS. As supplementary prescribers, pharmacists will use their skills to help many patients with chronic conditions such as coronary heart disease, diabetes, asthma and hypertension.
"Extending prescribing responsibilities to pharmacists will make getting the right medicine easier and more convenient than ever before and will help to reduce the burden on GPs by giving them more time to deal with acutely ill patients.
"Supplementary prescribing pharmacists will work closely with the doctor and the patient to ensure the effective delivery of a clinical management plan that is tailored to individual patients' needs."
Dr Gill Hawksworth MBE, President of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, echoed the Minister's comments saying:
"Supplementary prescribing will enable patients to benefit even further from pharmacists' knowledge and skills. This will really help increase public confidence in pharmacists' ability to perform a more clinical role at the front line of healthcare. These new kind of pharmacists will be working more closely than ever before with doctors and patients and I look forward to many more pharmacists qualifying as supplementary prescribers in the future."
Lorna Davies, Supplementary Prescribing Pharmacist at Derwent Valley Medical Practice said:
"I am extremely proud to be one of the first supplementary pharmacist prescribers. Supplementary prescribing is the natural extension of the prescribing advice role, and allows pharmacists to utilise their broad skill base to provide maximum benefit for patients. My new role has been accepted well by patients and all members of the practice team."
"We will provide a complete medicines management service for our patients by conducting a medication review as an integral part of the clinics. We will also be able to spend more time with those who may require additional medication related support. We plan to extend clinics to cover other chronic conditions, such as dyspepsia, in the future."
Notes to editor
1. A pharmacist supplementary prescriber will work in partnership with an independent prescriber (ie doctor or dentist) and a patient to provide and implement a Clinical Management Plan where appropriate to the patients needs. Supplementary prescribing is likely to be most useful in dealing with long-term medical conditions such as asthma diabetes or coronary heart disease, or with long-term health needs, such as anti-coagulation. As a partner in their own care the patient would be involved at all stages including whether part of their care is best delivered via supplementary prescribing.
2. Supplementary prescribing requires a close partnership between a doctor and pharmacist as well as access to the patient's medical record and access to a prescribing budget. The obvious candidates in pharmacy in the short term are pharmacists who already have close links with doctors, for instance pharmacists who work at health centres or in GP practices, and hospital pharmacists. Some community pharmacists already do sessional work at GP surgeries, so they will be obvious candidates too.
3. Initially Derwent Valley Medical Centre identified patients with essential hypertension from the computer records and invited them to attend a clinic, then sent a patient information leaflet to explain the principles of supplementary prescribing. They will now be running hypertension management clinics, starting with a small number of patients, so that they can develop a high quality service that fits within the principles of clinical governance.
Supplementary Prescribing is a voluntary prescribing partnership between the GP, patient and supplementary prescriber. It is important for patients to understand the process of supplementary prescribing before they arrive at clinic. Nurses and GPs in the area will be asked to refer newly diagnosed hypertensive patients and those with concordance related difficulties to the clinic.
4. Pharmacists are able to be trained as supplementary prescribers from 14 Higher Education Institutions around the country. The following universities have supplementary prescribing programmes available:
University of Bath http://www.bath.ac.uk
University of Brighton http://www.brighton.ac.uk
University of Bradford http://www.brad.ac.uk
Homerton College, Cambridge http://www.homerton.cam.ac.uk
Canterbury Christ Church University College http://www.cant.ac.uk/
University of Derby http://www.derby.ac.uk
University College Chester http://www.chester.ac.uk
Keele University http://www.keele.ac.uk
King's College London http://www.kcl.ac.uk
University of Leeds http://www.leeds.ac.uk
Liverpool John Moores University http://www.livjm.ac.uk
London Metropolitan University http://www.londonmet.ac.uk
London South Bank University http://www.lsbu.ac.uk
University of Portsmouth http://www.port.ac.uk
University of Sunderland http://www.sunderland.ac.uk
The courses are accredited by the Royal Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. Pharmacists are required to have 25 days additional training plus at least 12 days supervised practice and have to pass an exam before they are able to become supplementary prescribers.
5. There are around 20,000 pharmacists practising in the community and in hospitals in England. Supplementary prescribing is the first step towards independent prescribing. Informal discussions with the profession are beginning on independent prescribing.
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