The Pharmacy Show newspaper, July Issue

Page 1

Launching Pharmacy Show Chat & Community Sites

2013 Exhibition Floor Plan

SEE PAGE 6

Latest Exhibitor News

SEE PAGES 8 & 9

www.thepharmacyshow.co.uk

SEE PAGE 13

@pharmacyshow

July 2013

IS PHARMACY FIT FOR A FUTURE IN THE NEW NHS?

Bad Pharmacy: An example

Improving public health and reducing medicines waste are themes that are set to dominate conversations about the NHS during 2013 and beyond, but as the NHS struggles to pay for any new services, questions will be asked whether pharmacy represents the cost effective solution that NHS commissioners need? To find out the answer to these fundamental questions for the profession’s future, visit this year’s Pharmacy Show, scheduled to take place on Sunday 29th - Monday 30th September, 2013, at the National Exhibition Centre (NEC), Birmingham.

Seismic challenges

In a service-driven era where outcomes and competitive tendering lie at its heart, the gloves are effectively off, and through the Any Qualified Provider model, pharmacy must stand up and be counted, and compared, with the very best providers healthcare services in the market today. So, is it any wonder that when pharmacies are exposed by the likes of consumer watchdog Which? for substandard service, that their critics – and competitors - start asking questions about the apparent ‘disconnect’ between the level of service pharmacy tells the NHS it can provide to patients, and the levels of service it actually provides? When people question whether medicines optimisation is a fad, and the sceptics carp that medicines optimisation is just medicines management ‘rebadged’, should pharmacy really

Source: The King’s Fund

The latest changes to the NHS in England are seismic in comparison to all previous re-modellings of the health system. The most important change is the emergence of a new breed of commissioner with attitudes that are as rich in electoral accountability as they are poor in knowledge, understanding and sympathy with any previous perceptions of professional healthcare boundaries.

be shouting about the provisional findings of the New Medicine Service, which show that over eight in ten NMS medicines attracting an NMS service fee were already being taken as prescribed? If, as the dispensing doctors say, around 17 NMS patient consultations need to be done for one medicine to become adherent - at a cost of between £350.80- £491.12 to a cash-strapped NHS - why shouldn’t pharmacy be asked to stand up and defend its value for money service proposition? Equally, debatable are the recent findings of the Healthy Continued on page 3

The Pharmacy Show: For Winners The Pharmacy Show was recently shortlisted by Exhibition News Magazine for Best Trade Show 2013, and with over 200 nominations received, this alone demonstrated how the show is held in high regard by exhibition peers as well as the pharmaceutical industry. We are absolutely delighted to announce on the night of the awards ceremony (10th April 2013), a panel of judges announced The Pharmacy Show as WINNERS. This is a huge achievement and testament to all the hard work and effort put in by the team to ensure The Pharmacy Show remains the UK’s most attended and important education and sourcing event in the community pharmacy industry. The judges commented “The Best Trade Show category was the most hotly contested of all categories at this year’s Exhibition News Awards.” Continued on page 2

Supported by

Recently, I needed to go and buy some medicines. So, on my way into work, I popped into the nearest pharmacy to my route into work: a branch of a very large chain of chemists. I bought Piriton and Co-codamol. This turned out to be a particularly disappointing example of a very lackadaisical, dangerous attitude to OTC sales. And this comes merely a few weeks after publication of the latest Which? report into pharmacy, and about a week after pharmacy was referred to, by Ben Goldacre and Andy Lewis no less, as a “quack profession”. Now, I’m demonstrably not a parent, but you know when a child is told off for doing something naughty? The usual response is it stops doing the naughty thing, and is extra well-behaved for a while until the original offending behaviour is forgotten about. Then it starts being naughty again. On second thoughts, I know some adults to whom the same applies. The pharmacy profession as a whole should be in that well-behaved phase right now. We should be pulling together, and ensuring that everyone involved - including counter staff- pulls up their collective socks, shakes off bad habits, and works to the highest quality – not simply to prove a point, but because this is how we should operate all the time. So back to the pharmacy, I shuffled in and asked for “Some Piriton and some co-codamol”. The lady who served me appeared to be an experienced member of the pharmacy counter-staff. Here’s how the conversation went: Counter assistant: “Do you want a pack of 30 or 60 Piriton? Me: 30 Her: And you wanted paracetamol? Me: No, co-codamol. Her: Soluble? Continued on page 2


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The Pharmacy Show newspaper, July Issue by CloserStill Media - Issuu