Less paperwork. More patient care.

The pharmacy team’s role in primary care is vast — from reconciling letters to complex polypharmacy, from quality and outcomes framework coding to long-term condition reviews. Are our professionals putting their knowledge and expertise to best use, or being hired as an extra pair of hands? 

I chair the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Primary Care Pharmacy Expert Advisory Group, promoting discussion, openness, honesty, inclusivity and collaboration. I work in training and development of pharmacy teams in primary care across the UK. This position gives me an incredibly valuable insight into what pharmacy teams are asked to do in their day-to-day roles. 

And I’ll let you in on a little secret — everyone’s doing it slightly differently. From workstreams, to ledger timings, to other clinicians within the practice team, to referral pathways, to whether clinicians can book their own appointments, to sending tasks or have a debrief, to reauthorising ‘issue numbers’ or ‘review dates’, there is a difference in how practices are managing their workload and supporting their patients. 

The bottom line is everyone is doing their best. But could these decisions be made at a national level to free up the administrative burden of developing individual policies, procedures and guidelines? Can we work together to solve the same problems?

I know we can.

I think this is an area the Royal College of Pharmacy can lead on:

• Developing governance to support practices to best utilise and protect their pharmacy teams;
• Standardise ways of working nationally, guiding a systematic approach;
• Advise on the content of the national formulary, as outlined in the NHS ten-year plan;
• Reducing the burden of admin at individual level;
• Saving time and investing this into improving patient care.

If you have any ideas or comments regarding the above discussion, I’d love to hear them! Start a discussion with me on LinkedIn! No single person has all the answers, we need to work together.

If I am elected to the National Pharmacy Advisory Council, my aspiration is to help pharmacists learn more, love their jobs and best care for patients.

Sounds easy right? 

I’m committed and motivated to head in this direction and achieve great things for us. I look forward to sharing your ideas, leading our profession, representing pharmacy and primary care.

Stacey Middlemass

Candidate for the inaugural elections to the English Pharmacy Advisory Council