Primary care

Delayed antibiotics have similar benefits to those taken straight away, according to UK study

Shorter courses and ‘just-in-case’ prescriptions cut the risk of complications as well as reducing exposure to antibiotics while still producing good outcomes, researchers find.…

How to support patients with sight loss in pharmacy

More than two million people are affected by sight loss across the UK, which may impact on their ability to use and take their medicines correctly and safely. Here, the Royal National Institute of Blind People, Medicines Use and Safety team and Moorfields Eye Hospital provide advice and recomme…

Identifying people who display signs of dementia

Simran Janjua explains about a pilot using a case-finding tool to help identifying people in the community showing signs of dementia in order to refer them for further investigation.…

What the changes to the apprenticeship levy mean for pharmacy

Changes to the apprenticeship levy in England came into force in April 2017, meaning that regardless of the size of your pharmacy business, the apprenticeship programme should be seen as an opportunity to strengthen your workforce. Vanessa Kingsbury and Nick Marler explain what these changes mean an…

Over-simplistic view of the opioid substitution service

I read with disappointment the letter by Wai Sin Kung calling for opioid substitution services to be scrapped ( The Pharmaceutical Journal 2017;299:40). The views expressed were unfounded and simplistic. The opioid substitution service does indeed help some users to stop abusing drugs, b…

Screening for HIV in primary care is cost effective and should be promoted, say researchers

General practice-based HIV screening is an important public health intervention which should be used more widely, according to a study led by researchers at Queen Mary University of London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine…

There is a clear demand for pharmacists, says RCGP in GP Forward View assessment

The Royal College of General Practitioners has said that good progress has been made in the roll-out of practice-based pharmacists…

More than 250,000 people in UK taking benzodiazepines and Z-drugs for longer than recommended

More than a quarter of a million people in the UK are likely to be taking dependency-forming benzodiazepines and Z-drugs far beyond the recommended usage of 2–4 weeks, according to a study in The British Journal of General Practice.…

How I support community health services as a national quality pharmacist

The opportunities for pharmacists within the community services sector are huge, says James Andrews.…

Experience of setting up and running a referral scheme from the secondary care anticoagulant clinic to community pharmacies in Swindon

The new medicines service (NMS) is an advanced service in the community pharmacy contractual framework. It consists of community pharmacist structured interviews with patients during their first month of treatment with a new medicine. The service aims to improve medicines concordance and improve pat…