For a lot of things this would no doubt help. I went to a pharmacist recently about a medical issue and she knew exactly what drug I needed and I knew I needed it to, but she couldn’t give it to me until I spoke to a GP. That meant I went without the drug for an entire week waiting, and I clogged up the GP’s workload. Likewise, @Electrifying might be able to clear this up - why can’t nurses at A&E prescribe drugs if a patient is with them? Makes no sense.
But we are not getting those thing with the money given. It’s not about profit it’s about standards. Why as a tax payer do I need to accept diminishing returns on health care? More money every year and it gets worse and worse every year. So where is our tax money going? All £277 billion of it
This isn’t a view shared by nurses and pharmacists and creates an “us and them” attitude. The independent prescribing course is intensive and supplements the undergraduate nursing/MPharm degrees very well.
What do we do? Sit on our hands and wait for more doctors to magically appear by doing a medicine degree? Or do we allow prescribing qualifications to become more widespread (in terms of opportunity to undertake it) and/or fast-track medical degrees which is also a viable option? I know which I’d choose.
And it’s not just nurses and pharmacists that are benefiting from this. Physiotherapists and paramedics can fully take advantage of the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme offered under the DES contract for PCNs
I get it, I do. Part of my job is dealing with this type of stuff. Maneuvering a government program like that is complicated. It’s simple to redline stuff on a budget and say “Ah, do we really need X?” And maybe you don’t but I’ve found a lot of those reviews cut resources for the workers in an attempt to make things look fiscally responsible and lead to your professionals being asked to “do more with less”
They already are there but need to fund training places for them so they can actually progress through training or don’t leave because pay and conditions are dogshit
Right now they are bottlenecked and that’s why there are so many locums.
I have no problem with pharmacist’s being able to prescribe.
I’m ok with a fast tracked medical degree. No problem. I applaud it as a way of people that wouldn’t normally have had an entry to medicine being able to do it. But that should be a must if you want to assess people.
Just like I wouldn’t want a doctor to look at somebody’s prescription and make sure the meds don’t affect eachother badly or a new med won’t interact badly with the rest that well.
I wouldn’t want a pharmacist to see my tummy pain, constipation and weight loss.
It’s not mean to talk about patient safety and some standards. To flag up when Tory scumbags are doing shortcuts affecting many people by letting people do jobs they aren’t properly qualified for.
This is a good question but the answer is very complex.
The current total level of expenditure does not compare favourably to NHS performance Under Blair’s labour or current other developed nations so there are deeper issues
I wonder if some firm could be allowed to make an office, get a couple CT scanners, hire some radiographers and radiologists get some top line screens and charge people for scans with no wait?
Likewise for other scans. Could get through the backlog decently.
But tbf, the UK spends comparatively a lot less on healthcare than other European countries. But I think the funding models are different e.g. employers and insurance involvement instead of taxpayer.
Part of the reason the UK population is so sick in comparison imo is how obese we are, the high rates of alcohol and smoking. Probably the fattest country in Europe, 2nd in world after US.
That makes a difference. I personally blame austerity for a lot of this
You’ve just said it’s akin to air hostesses taking over a pilot’s job. We’re going down quite a wormhole if we’re drawing comparisons like that (and tbh, I don’t want to as it’s disrespectful)
As we’ve previously discussed, I believe that in England a lot of work is being done for the future workforce (HEE seem to be a bit more determined in training up doctors than they do pharmacists). However, as the absorption of this organisation by the NHS is imminent, can we trust this will always be the case? And is there a difference in this determined focus in England compared to Wales?
I do think that the pigeon-holing with the two roles you’ve done there isn’t the best example. A hospital based Dr is, in my experience, well placed to work out drug interactions without the involvement of a pharmacist and a pharmacist in any sector deals with constipation, tummy ache and weight loss easily.
That’s issue no one is looking which doesn’t help. To improve it you have look into the detail instead on doing the same thing every year “throw more money at it hope for the best”
Hospital pharmacists are so good at making sure patients aren’t being killed by drug interactions by letting you know when a new drug being started will fuck them up.
And tbh their conditions sound like shit too they seem so understaffed and undervalued too
And I also do not believe a community pharmacist being the first port of call if someone has tummy pain is a good idea at all. It is a symptom of a health service in mess.
And I don’t mean that in a harsh way. I just think a lot of Boomers who have completely destroyed things won’t have any sort epiphany on the way out. Why would they? It’s all worked out pretty well for them as a cohort.