Pharmacists In GP

The Thanet Health CIC (TH CIC) has facilitated the employment and working of clinical pharmacists in a group of surgeries in Thanet.

TH CIC could take advantage of its position as a membership organisation, comprised of the local GPs, to apply successfully to the NHS under the General Practice Forward View(GPFV) with the intend to have a Thanet wide team, that is connected and embedded into the integrated workforce build locally.

Each pharmacist is primarily part of the surgery team they are working for, ensuring they work to the best interest of the the patients of their surgery, but also has functions relating to their Primary Care Home (PCH) and Thanet, supporting auditing, efficient prescribing and setting priorities working together with their peers (team "Phanet") and the wider Thanet health and social care teams.

Recent changes to the program will enable us to having more pharmacists working in the surgeries Thanet.

Clinical pharmacists can help with anything relating to prescribing for patients:

Patient facing (telephone or face to face):

• Answering medication queries
• Performing medication reviews: based in the surgery but also going out to see housebound patients at their homes, residential and nursing homes
• Over the counter medication advice
• helping to find alternatives in "out of stock" scenarios (unfortunately those appear to become more common)
• Minor illness assessment and treatment (Our pharmacist are undergoing intensive training for this)
• Direct prescribing for either minor illness and chronic disease (Our pharmacist are undergoing intensive training for this)

Computer facing:

• Transfer of care (discharge) reconciliation – aligning the GP medication records with the medication prescribed after coming out of hospital or consultant care.
• Auditing and optimizing prescribing at their surgery
• Contributing to the wider auditing, learning, research and setting of priorities
• throughout Thanet.