Community Pharmacy Essay

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Community pharmacist (CP) is highly competent and the most accessible health care profession to the public in the UK. It is estimated more than 550 million visits to community pharmacy take place in the UK annually. There are roughly 32000 qualified CP serving in 13000 community pharmacies in England. Standing on the front line of health care, the quality of the service provided by pharmacists is of the utmost importance. In order to deliver a patient orientated health care service, public perspective of pharmacy and the service provided should be taken into consideration and this is the primary objective of the group research project. This group research project studied public opinion of health care, accessing pharmacies and medicines, …show more content…

This finding is not surprising given a quantitative research from Wendy Gidman et al. which documented that most public have faith in GP rather than CP. The underlying reason can be dissected into personality relationship, commercial image of community pharmacy, hierarchies in healthcare and mistrust in pharmacist qualification. However, the point of view from 26 participants is too small to represent the whole UK population. The convenience and accessibility of the community pharmacy make it serves as a reassurance place before contacting GP. The role of CP is evolving from traditional drug dispensing role into a vital player in the multidisciplinary team at primary care setting. This includes providing public health service, treating minor ailment and managing Long Term Condition …show more content…

In June 2015, it was announced that CP are able to get access to patient summary care records for continuity of care purpose. The national roll out is still in the process and expected to complete one year later. T.Porteous et al. composed views of patients, GP and CP on developing a system that enables medical records to be shared between GP and CP. Most pharmacists agree that having access to patient medical record ease them in making clinical judgment. GP believe that this system will improve patient healthcare. Around 50% of the patient agreed to let CP access to their medication records while 62% of them are happy for pharmacist to inform their GP about the side effect faced by them. However, there is some concern regarding the website security and also patient consent and confidentiality. A more recent research from YouGov shows that nearly 85% of the UK adults want their medical records to be access by all health care professional to improve their care received. This research intends to build on previous research effort to investigate public opinion on sharing medical information between GP and

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