Current trends for advanced clinical practice based pharmacists
Contribution of the Advanced Clinical Practitioner ( ACP ) role
In July 2015 , NHS England launched a clinical pharmacist in General Practice pilot , and clinical pharmacists began working in GP practices in early 2016 .
Feedback from practices involved in the NHS England ’ s pilot reveals clinical pharmacists are helping practices to reduce waiting times for appointments , increasing access to healthcare , improving screenings and diagnosis of chronic and common ailments , reducing A & E admissions and attendances , and reducing medicines wastage and overuse .
Current trends for advanced clinical practice based pharmacists
As primary care practices face mounting clinical workload ( Hobbs et al ., 2016 ), interventions to reduce patient harm and costs while trying to avoid creating unnecessary workload on GPs is a key area clinical pharmacists are trying to bridge . The increased recognition of a clinical pharmacist ’ s contribution in GP practice is ensuring sustainability and validating their inclusion within every GP practice ( Truong et al ., 2017 )
The NHS Alliance and the Royal Pharmaceutical Society ( RPS ) has put together a list of functions a pharmacist can perform in a GP practice ( Robinson , 2015 ; Royal Pharmaceutical Society ( RPS ), 2014 ).
Pharmacist role within a GP practice involves :
Clinical services work with GP ’ s and patients to address medicine adherence , review patients on complex medicine regimens , triaging , and managing common ailments , responding to acute medicine requests , and managing and prescribing for long-term conditions ( often in conjunction with the practice nurse ).
Prescription management - dealing with medication for patients recently discharged from hospital ; supporting the practice to deliver on the Quality , Innovation , Productivity and Prevention ( QIPP ) and Quality Outcomes Framework ( QOF ) agenda and enhanced services ; delivering repeat prescription reviews , being the point of contact for all medicine-related queries and overseeing the practice ’ s repeat prescription policy .
Clinical audits to help implement change in prescribing , ensure adherence to formulary prescribing and educate practice staff and clinicians .
Assisting the practice with medicines optimisation and reconciliation through reviewing discharge letters and blood results .
Having worked in over 8 GP practices with varying patient list sizes ranging from 3000 to 15000 patients , with variable management styles from practice managers and GPs , the author can safely say that every practice operates differently , and you have to adapt your leadership style to establish your place within a practice .
Contribution of the Advanced Clinical Practitioner ( ACP ) role
Having commenced the MSc Advanced Clinical Practitioner course in 2016 and successfully completed the various modules , the course gave the author confidence to become a more complete independent clinical practitioner . The self-assurance gained from the course content , tutors and training has improved the authors clinical care for patients and thus becoming an integral part of the surgery team delivering on all aspects of patient care and GP practice workload .
The knowledge and skills gained has afforded the author the ability to safely assess , diagnose and treat or refer patients presenting with undifferentiated problems within a GP practice . Having already completed the independent prescribing qualification in 2008 , signing up for the 3 year post graduate degree in 2016 was a significant leap in terms of getting back to formal tertiary education at the University . The art of juggling full-time work , being a father to a young family , as well as coordinating attendance at lectures , ensuring course work was completed within the allocated time and having restful time