Ipswich and East Suffolk has seen a significant expansion in the pharmacy workforce facilitated by the ARRS and individual practices funded posts in recent years. This has led to an influx of both pharmacists and pharmacy technicians from a variety of backgrounds with differing levels of experience and exposure. It was quickly understood that pharmacy staff within primary care were undertaking different roles in practices depending on the practices understanding of their new workforce. Furthermore, it was seen that pharmacy staff had differences in their understanding of primary care and what was expected of them Recognising this disparity our aim was to support the staff in giving them an understanding on current systems, what the alliances medicines management team role is and out objectives, identify leaning opportunities for the pharmacy workforce and promote learning and development.
We had initially started with setting up a pharmacy forum to introduce ourselves and learn a little bit about their role. We had also given them the opportunity to network to help build inter practice relationships and sought to understand what the current climate was. As these meetings were once every three to four months, we had also set up a what app group to allow staff to post messages, ask questions and network further We had also worked on offering training to new starters to introduce to them to medicines management in primary care, our formularies and policies to support them in their work while offering open contact to the team to discuss medicines issues. We had expanded the forum to include medicines updates, Q and A sessions and opened the opportunity to have specialists' delivery training sessions in areas they wished to have further development in. Training sessions included elderly care, diabetes, respiratory and appliance training. We had also recognised the difference in training needs for pharmacy technicians and had set up sessions with our senior technicians to support them in primary care.
The update in the DES gave pharmacists a key focus on SMRs. As an ICB we had developed resources and guidance to support pharmacists with undertaking the reviews to provide consistency in approach.
Recently we have been involving the pharmacy staff in prescribing meetings with practices and PCNs to utilise their expertise in medicines and sharing the medicines management objectives. This has supported the development of relationships and allow to support pharmacists in developing their role within individual practices.
The work has greatly benefitted patients by enabling them to delivery high quality reviews through improving their understanding of medicines within primary care. Pharmacy involvement in certain practice have reduced prescribing spends. Attendance has grown within the forum with further interest being observed in neighbouring CCGs. The methods used in Ipswich and East Suffolk is being replicated across our neighbouring alliances with a view to moving ICB wide approach in supporting the pharmacy team in primary care.
