Just this week I have read of two government funded Scottish initiatives for pharmacy, one for a research project where patients in a rural area in Aberdeenshire where a patient can go into the post office and speak to a pharmacist in a neighbouring village via a kiosk.
Another is a pharmacy refit where the pharmacy has rebranded itself as a Pharmacy Health Centre and has received a grant to purchase a robot from the “Prescription for Excellence Strategy “. In the new Cadham pharmacy the robot helps give the pharmacist more time to spend with patients and they employ nurses to help in the clinics.
These government funded projects are aiming to bring better efficient and quality pharmacy services to patient yet in 2014 , a Somerset pharmacy has grown its dispensing by 80% after it abandoned it robot in favour of more staff.
Over 20 years ago in a supermarket pharmacy environment we trialled a PC based software diagnostic service for travel health and heart diagnostics. Patients used the service which were prototypes, the cost of the technology was prohibitive and by the time we agreed funding the company supplying the hardware went bankrupt. Patients do tend to embrace technology and “ Dr Google “ is in great demand every day.
Should all the technology be at the expense of current pharmacy services which will have to endure a reduction in practice payments? These pharmacies are already serving such communities, delivering medicines to patient homes from neighbouring village pharmacies which pharmacies have done for years free of charge.
Only last week I sat in two meetings about two very different profile pharmacies dispensing 3500 and 16,000 prescriptions respectively, delivering MURs and NMS and yet they are not making any money and are looking for help to redress the balance as they are not able to borrow any more money to keep their pharmacy afloat. These pharmacies do have some adjustments they can make but they will be offset by the government cuts, direction of scripts and the
potential reduction of Pharmacies with high rents or large loans, tied into purchasing agreements where they cannot shop around for better prices are very limited in what they can do and it is inevitable that many will face closure in the next few years.
I do agree we should invest for the future and innovative technology but if the key driver is to offer a pharmacy service to local communities at a lower cost, has the bigger global picture been considered? Letting pharmacies shut will add pressure to the local surgeries and the A and E departments servicing these areas. Patients will not all use the internet to order or consult with pharmacists they will seek face to face consultations time will tell if it will.