A&E pilots Pharmacy First referral pathway for three months
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The A&E department at North Middlesex University Hospital (North Mid) has launched a Pharmacy First referral pathway to allow patients who present with minor ailments to “seek care from their local pharmacy instead”, its trust announced.
Introduced last month, the pilot will run for three months with the aim of improving waiting times and reducing “pressure for staff”, the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust said.
Read more: Revealed: GP referrals to Pharmacy First down by quarter in a year
It will also showcase the “collaborative” efforts between “staff, local pharmacists and the North Central London integrated care board (ICB)” and ensure patients “receive the right care from the most appropriate healthcare service”, it added.
According to the trust, patients who visit North Mid A&E with “minor health issues” - such as earaches, sore throats or urinary tract infections (UTI) - will be assessed by a clinician and “advised whether a pharmacist would be able to provide advice”.
Read more: Boots ‘lollipop pharmacist’ urges patients to ‘think pharmacist first’
If patients are happy to be referred, “reception staff will send a digital referral to a nearby community pharmacy using the Pharma Refer system”, it said.
The system then “records the patient’s outcome from their pharmacy visit in case they need to return to the emergency department”, it added, noting that if this happens, they will “rejoin their original place” in the queue.
Immediate
While emergency department staff have always been able to advise patients to visit a pharmacy for certain ailments, there has never been a pathway to send them there directly for treatment, the trust told C+D last week (September 11).
The new pilot also allows information regarding the patient to be sent directly to the pharmacy, which was never possible before, it added.
“Using the skills of community pharmacists and the provision of free medications under the Pharmacy First scheme” will provide the public with “immediate free treatment for a range of approved conditions,” said North Mid chief pharmacist and director of medicines optimisation Sarah Stern.
Read more: Pharmacies must ‘promote’ PF service via national campaign
North Mid emergency department service manager Karen Archer said that she hopes the pilot will “help the local community recognise how pharmacists can help them and next time they have the same or similar ailment they feel confident to go straight to the pharmacy”.
“Going into winter, we see a lot of patients attending emergency departments with sore throats and many of these patients can now be referred directly to their local pharmacy,” she added.
Archer also said that the pilot will help the trust “build strong working relationships with local pharmacies”, adding that “they are the backbone of our community” and the “better the relationship” it has with them, the “more encouraged patients will feel”.
Read more: ICB investigating plunge in Pharmacy First GP referrals
It comes after Boots launched a campaign last week to encourage people to visit their pharmacy for support for common conditions - rather than their GP - and “think pharmacy first”.
And Community Pharmacy England (CPE) announced earlier this month that pharmacies have been tasked with promoting the Pharmacy First service to the public as their first national campaign topic under this year’s contract.
Meanwhile, data obtained by C+D via a freedom of information (FOI) request earlier this year revealed that Pharmacy First consultations delivered after a general practice referral have noticeably decreased since the service was launched in January 2024.
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