Supported by
Media Partner
Education Partner
Training Partner
Latest News & Press
In the Spotlight with - Gary Warner
Gary Warner is the Chair for Service Development at the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) and works tirelessly to integrate the potential of community pharmacists and their pharmacy teams in delivering better patient outcomes.
Informed by his work on the Isle of Wight, both in his own pharmacies and as the Chair of the Clinical Design Group at the PCT, he believes that the ease of access, patient profile and improving communications within community pharmacy provide the ideal platform for delivery of public health services such as awareness, intervention and behaviour change support.
Whilst supporting the Healthy Living Pharmacy project in Portsmouth and as part of the team that won the Silver Medal at the 2010 Chief Medical Officer’s Awards, he has developed the evidence of the positive impact that community pharmacy can play in the lives of every part of the community Gary is speaking at the Pharmacy Show’s Patient Services Forum on Sunday, October 9th looking at the practical implementation of the New Medicine Service.
Ahead of the conference in October, Gary was interviewed by the Pharmacy Show and discussed his views on new services and the opportunities for community pharmacies.
Gary Warner: I think that community pharmacy has certainly become more efficient over the last five or ten years with significantly more prescriptions being dispensed but we’ve also started on the journey of what you might consider to be cognitive services – services that involve the pharmacist becoming involved in patient care directly by discussing the use of their medicine, rather than providing advice alongside that dispensing process. I also think that at this time of change, in this period of austerity, to be provided new funding to deliver a new service is an opportunity that cannot be dismissed.”
GW: The introduction of targeted MURs is, in many ways, a reflection of what we have learned over the last six years – that providing a structure helps both delivery and outcome. Pharmacists find it easier to recruit patients when they have the support and training that will be available to them for these particular drug groups. It’s also easier to measure the impact that pharmacists have had, like they did with respiratory MURs in Portsmouth in the Healthy Living Pharmacy model.
GW: I think the vast majority of us do the preliminary aspect of this anyway by counselling patients on their new medicine’s side-effects and how to manage them if they occur. The opportunity to check back with the patient a couple of weeks later to ‘see how they are getting on’ is one that we are perfectly placed to do and is also something that there is evidence that we can make a real difference.
Many independent pharmacy owners enjoy the ‘entrepreneur ’ label, so for them this is the opportunity to innovate. For employee pharmacists, this is the opportunity to engage with patient care and use the skills acquired for MURs previously and develop those fulfilling relationships further. For the small proprietor, MURs remain an opportunity to earn the same income as the largest multiple pharmacy. But for all of us, this is the one-off opportunity to deliver evidence that pharmacists are key to the management of medicines now and in the future.
