Concerns over resourcing as SMRs recommended to prevent falls Pharmacy teams must be supported to prioritise Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs), particularly for patients at risk of falls, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has stressed. This comes as new draft guidelines from NICE suggest that SMRs should be used to identify ... Date: 23-10-2024 Categories: • In Practice • News

Leaders cast their vision for the future of community pharmacy ... tional Pharmacy Association (NPA), told Pharmacy Show delegates that there was 'massive scope' for community pharmacies to do more in terms of medicines optimisation. 'We should be moving to SMRs [Structured Medication Reviews] being at the heart of community pharmacy,' he said. He suggested that money allocated to general practice for the Additional Roles Reimbursement Scheme (ARRS) could be used to fund this work in ... Date: 15-10-2024 Categories: • Cardiovascular • Clinical • Community • Diabetes and endocrinology • Long-term conditions • News • Obesity & nutrition • Smoking cessation • Vaccinations and infections

Adding GPs to ARRS 'must not jeopardise pharmacists’ roles' ... professions. 'This must be backed by the ongoing investment needed to deliver high-quality patient care.' And he noted the 'huge difference for patients' that ARRS pharmacists make, 'delivering Structured Medication Reviews at scale'. Meanwhile, Graham Stretch, president of the Primary Care Pharmacy Association (PCPA), welcomed today's announcement. 'PCPA have long advocated for strong multidisciplinary teams in ... Date: 01-08-2024 Categories: • In Practice • News

Pharmacists must be enabled to prioritise SMRs, urges RPS Primary care network (PCN) pharmacists should be enabled to prioritise Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs) in the highest risk patients, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) has said in a policy statement today. This follows concerns that PCNs and practices are deprioritising SMRs and directi ... Date: 23-07-2024 Categories: • In Practice • News

ARRS pharmacists dissatisfied with pay and progression ... ublished by The British Journal of General Practice. And a recent agenda item at the RPS's England board meeting suggested that pharmacy workforce in general practice was 'being directed away from Structured Medication Reviews, and instead being tasked with other activities.’ Our survey also suggested that less than half (43%) of ARRS pharmacists were confident in their job security, and 36% said they did not have job ... Date: 17-07-2024 Categories: • In Practice • News

Practice pharmacists being 'directed away’ from delivering SMRs The Royal Pharmaceutical Society (RPS) is proposing the development of a position statement that would encourage 'greater transparency' around Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs), following reports that the primary care pharmacy workforce is being 'directed away' from doing them. This comes as NHS England (NHSE) prescribing director Professor Tony Avery has said th ... Date: 17-06-2024 Categories: • In Practice • News

'Strong rationale' for GP pharmacist medicines reviews ... oting in England; the populations are similar, including the focus on those at higher risk; intervention was delivered in the real world; and we have the pharmacy workforce in primary care to deliver Structured Medication Reviews.' The study, published last month in the International Journal of Clinical Pharmacy, concluded that 'person-centred medicines reviews by general practice pharmacists for patients at high risk of ... Date: 17-06-2024 Categories: • In Practice • News

How PCNs can support pharmacists: guidance from a London trust ... igh risk drug monitoring. Localised incentive schemes e.g., audits, medicine switches, ICB medicine priorities Actioning CAS Alerts Long term condition-based reviews utilising a template. Structured Medication Reviews. Supervises less experienced pharmacists and technicians. Advises junior medical staff and nurses on pharmacy matters. Band 8a (duties as above and including below) Responsible for lea ... Date: 25-01-2024 Categories: • Analysis • In Practice

James Davies: Medicines should be seen as an investment, rather than a cost ... g about where to focus their interests, what do you think is going to be the clinical development for that group of pharmacists? The bedrock for that group of pharmacists has been very much around Structured Medication Reviews, but what we're increasingly seeing is many of the pharmacists who have taken on these roles come from a slightly entrepreneurial background, and they've been working very closely with their practic ... Date: 03-01-2024 Categories: • Community • In Practice • Interviews • Interviews

Meet the Pharmacy Team of the Year Award shortlist: Haringey GP Federation clinical pharmacy team ... entry under the spotlight from this year’s shortlist of six is the Haringey GP Federation clinical pharmacy team. Among the significant work of the Haringey team is the piloting of the STOMP-STAMP Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs) project. The STOMP-STAMP initiative was designed to reduce the dependence on psychotropic medication for patients with learning difficulties (LD) and/or autism in North Central London (NCL ... Date: 06-12-2023 Categories: • Analysis

Meet the Pharmacy Team of the Year Award shortlist: Chester East PCN pharmacy team ... etwork. New medication safety processes have been implemented within the practices, while existing ones have been streamlined. A system has been set up for identifying patients who would benefit from Structured Medication Reviews, and then delivering them. Members have embedded themselves into practice teams, helping to establish the use of new medication pathways for long-term conditions such as diabetes, heart failure a ... Date: 29-11-2023 Categories: • Analysis

MPs told of ‘huge differences’ pharmacists make in general practice ... ut the ‘expertise and safety that we can deliver’ alongside ‘quality’. According to Dr Stretch, there were around 7,000 pharmacists working in general practices in England, ‘delivering 2.8 million Structured Medication Reviews’. He cited examples of practice pharmacist helping to reduce opioid overuse – notably by 80% in Barrow in Cumbria and by 65% on the Norfolk coast. ‘[Pharmacists] are making huge differences to ... Date: 22-11-2023 Categories: • In Practice • News

Less than half of practice pharmacists have positive inductions, suggests survey ... time available to carry them out safely’. Examples included being expected to undertake up to 100 tasks a day, in addition to clinic appointments and query fielding, or being expected to complete Structured Medication Reviews in 10 minutes. They also raised concerns that their pay did not adequately reflect the level of expertise and responsibility required in their role. Some respondents reported that prescribers ... Date: 04-10-2023 Categories: • In Practice • News

Laura Buckley: PCN pharmacy in care homes ... I take my laptop in, so I've got access to all the patient records. Medicine is probably one of the last things that I talk about as part of the review. In the network contract, they are termed Structured Medication Reviews, but for me they are not just focused on medicines. They are holistic reviews, they cover the patient as a whole and actually the medicine is probably one of the last things that I talk about as ... Date: 27-09-2023 Categories: • In Practice • Interviews

Focus on practice pharmacy roles ‘marked contrast’ to community ... inued NHS underinvestment in the community pharmacy sector’. And he said that funding should be invested in community pharmacies to enable them to provide patient services. ‘For example, siting Structured Medication Reviews principally in GP practices means the opportunity has so far been missed to fully mobilise the community pharmacy network to reduce patient harm and achieve better value for health systems by tackli ... Date: 31-08-2023 Categories: • News

CCA calls for ‘new framework’ on supervision ... CA said that instead of recruiting pharmacists and pharmacy technicians under ARRS, ICBs should commission community pharmacies to deliver ‘packages of care’, such as reviewing high risk medications, Structured Medication Reviews, or long-term condition clinics. ‘Whilst this would require changes to the DES to enable funding to commission community pharmacies directly for service provision, it is already supported by the ... Date: 24-07-2023 Categories: • News

Pharmacist in practice: Sharing your struggles opens up a conversation ... booked in for blood tests and the monitoring that's required. Plus we're doing general medication reviews, pill checks, and making sure that we fulfil our [ICB] targets as well. Last year, we did Structured Medication Reviews, and that was really looking into high-risk patients and making sure that they're on the correct medication. If any changes need to be made, I would suggest that to the doctors. And that's really wh ... Date: 17-05-2023 Categories: • In Practice • Interviews • News

Pharmacist in practice: ‘What attracts me to the PCN world is the variety it offers’ ... – I finished that last year. What does your job look like day-to-day?  I'll be getting involved in lots of different things, depending on what my network requires. So, it could be anything from Structured Medication Reviews, to working on specific pieces of work. So I'm looking at patients on maybe high risk medicines: it might be chronic disease reviews. In the past in general practice, I've played quite an integral r ... Date: 03-05-2023 Categories: • In Practice • Interviews

Pharmacist in practice: Having an ‘interface pharmacist’ would support integration ... surgeries – both face-to-face and telephone appointments. Usually, there’s a morning clinic from around 9am until lunchtime, and within that clinic there will be a mixture of things. We do plenty of Structured Medication Reviews for high-risk patients that have been identified as people that require attention to their medication. That’s part of the network DES – one of the things required of clinical pharmacists to hit our ... Date: 12-04-2023 Categories: • In Practice • Interviews

Pharmacist in practice: 'There’s lots of new shared care medication coming to primary care' ... itional roles such as managing patients with long-term conditions and, because you can prescribe independently, you don’t need to involve the GP and can work independently, rather than just doing the Structured Medication Reviews that you were taken on for originally. Are you currently undertaking any training? How is it going? I’m at a point now where I’ve completed the 18-month pathway and I’ve started doing my Indep ... Date: 22-03-2023 Categories: • In Practice • Interviews

Meet the Pharmacy Team of the Year Award shortlist: Core Prescribing Solutions Clacton PCN Pharmacy Team ... ng approach to carrying out clinical audits on patient populations requiring education and attention has seen them consolidate drug regimens and provide healthy lifestyle measures through high-level, Structured Medication Reviews. Elderly patients receiving high doses of certain medicines has been a particular priority within the PCN team and focus on this patient group has led to de-prescribing sleeping tablets and blood ... Date: 18-11-2022 Categories: • News

Pharmacists require GP supervision when conducting SMRs, finds study GPs should provide more supervision to support pharmacists delivering Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs), a study has suggested. SMRs, which came into effect in October 2020, see clinical pharmacists work with patients who take multiple medicines to help them understand the benefits and risks ... Date: 04-05-2022 Categories: • News

PCN pharmacists not integrated ‘effectively’ into primary care teams, study finds  ... uld not do bigger pieces of work that they wanted to do.   ‘I want to run audits, I want to work on opioids… I haven’t got the capacity to do that. The expectation from my PCN was to do [Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs)] and SMRs only. I basically wasn’t given any control of my ledgers; they have just booked me in SMRs. They’ve not listened to me,’ they said.  The authors said that pharmacists report ... Date: 14-03-2022 Categories: • News

Ministers plan to ‘take action’ on overprescribing ... development, including upgrading existing skills’. These additional pharmacy staff will be able to ‘provide comprehensive reviews of the medication regimes for the most vulnerable patients through Structured Medication Reviews,’ Dr Ridge explained. Dr Ridge recommended that the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) should work alongside the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) and other stakeholders to ‘support ... Date: 23-09-2021 Categories: • News

'Whatever happened to the promise of more clinical services?' ... s have had to stop a service that was paying circa £11,200/annum and replace it with a new service that, at current uptake, is paying about a tenth of that income. NHSE&I have now commissioned Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs) back with general practice. Why was our network of community pharmacies not better utilised to support these services? New Medicines Service Having the time to talk to patients on ne ... Date: 27-05-2021 Categories: • Opinion

Blood testing is the latest epidemic in primary care ... is got to do with pharmacists? Quite a lot, to be honest. Since many pharmacists started working for PCNs, they’ve been heavily involved in medication reviews – and this activity has escalated since ‘Structured Medication Reviews’ kicked in as one of those PCN contract specifications we’re enjoying so much. While it’s been gratifying to see the great ‘pharmacists in practice’ project progress from pupal to full-on-lepidop ... Date: 09-10-2020 Categories: • Views

Covid-19: Support for care homes requires collaboration from across pharmacy sectors ... king with multidisciplinary teams to support the clinical review of patients; facilitating medication supply; information and support to ensure the safe and effective use of medicines; and delivering Structured Medication Reviews. Community pharmacies will continue to lead on the supply of prescribed medicines to care homes, which includes facilitating end of life medication. Teams can also work with care homes pharmacist ... Date: 26-05-2020 Categories: • Covid-19 • Latest News • News

New Year, same old problems ... ch should be no great surprise given that the recently released draft service specifications for Primary Care Networks imposes a huge burden on networks, centring on enhanced health in care homes and Structured Medication Reviews - and therefore promises enticing job opportunities for disillusioned community pharmacists. Quite where that leaves Matt Hancock’s vision for high-street pharmacy is unclear: it’s pretty pointle ... Date: 15-01-2020 Categories: • Opinion • Views

Transfer NMS from community to practice-based pharmacists, recommend researchers ... garnering support from the sector on social media. Meanwhile, the medicines use reviews (MURs) service is being phased out of community pharmacy under the latest pharmacy contract and replaced by Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs) carried out by ‘clinical’ pharmacists working within primary care networks (PCNs). Date: 04-12-2019 Categories: • Clinical • News

‘Survival’ of community pharmacy and general practice ‘dependent’ on one another, says commissioner ... es are not going to go down within general practice.’ There is a ‘huge opportunity’ for community pharmacy to support PCNs with the delivery of services, Mr Sharma added, for example in delivering Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs) within networks, which have replaced medicines use reviews (MURs) delivered in pharmacy. In May, NHS England said that pharmacy contractors could deliver some parts of the GP contract serv ... Date: 21-11-2019 Categories: • News

How my PCN is working with pharmacists ... ons around November this year, so that people can come, meet each other and learn from each other.   Q. What are the next steps for the PCN? A. For pharmacists, we’re going to concentrate on Structured Medication Reviews from the get-go. The medication reviews are one of the seven national service specifications that primary care networks have to deliver. It will be a struggle for nurses and a lot of GPs to find tim ... Date: 16-08-2019 Categories: • Interviews • News • Primary care update • Views

NHS 111 patients redirected to community pharmacies as part of five-year funding deal ... rmacist it doesn't believe this service will increase pharmacists' workload as their time will be freed up following the decommissioning of the medicines use review service, which will be replaced by Structured Medication Reviews (SMRs) provided through GP networks. Commenting on the new service, health and social care secretary Matt Hancock said that the five-year deal will allow patients to get help in the most appropri ... Date: 24-07-2019 Categories: • Latest News • More News • News

What support can your LPC give you with primary care networks? ... uch as flu vaccinations and public health campaigns; and potential local roles supporting the seven national service specifications for PCNs. Five of these developments will start from April 2020: Structured Medication Reviews and optimisation; enhanced health in care homes; anticipatory care (with community services); personalised care; and supporting early cancer diagnosis. The other two will start from April 2021: card ... Date: 02-07-2019 Categories: • News