"Country Doctor"
JOIN CDA NEWS INDEX POLITICS DISPENSING EDUCATION FEATURES BOOKS SMALL ADS GP FEES LIGHT BITES LINKS FEEDBACK
A
Scots chemist too far
David Roberts
"Country Doctor"
JOIN CDA NEWS INDEX POLITICS DISPENSING EDUCATION FEATURES BOOKS SMALL ADS GP FEES LIGHT BITES LINKS FEEDBACK
A
Scots chemist too far
David Roberts
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An item
illustrating the dangers of mushrooming chemists to Scots communities
appeared in a recent edition of "Dotpharmacy.com".
It cannot pass without comment.
---------------- BMA
‘quite wrong’ to attack rural pharmacies, says negotiator
The Scottish pharmacy contract negotiator has hit back at doctors’ claims that the introduction of community pharmacies into rural areas is threatening GP services. The British Medical Association said loss of dispensing revenue from GP practices in remote areas, following new pharmacy contracts, limited the ability of these dispensing doctors to provide medical services. Dr Andrew Buist, deputy chairman of the BMA’s Scottish General Practitioners’ Committee, said local residents should be consulted by NHS Boards before a pharmacy was established. But the BMA’s claims ignored the obligation of health boards to assess provision of healthcare services, said Community Pharmacy Scotland (CPS). Chief executive Harry McQuillan said: “It is quite wrong to somehow seek to persuade patients that they will be forced to choose between access to GP services or pharmacy services. “Where it is possible for patients to have access to both, then they should have that right.” CPS spokesman Alex MacKinnon said: “The best option is for pharmaceutical care to be provided by a pharmacist, who trains for five years.” A spokesperson for NHS Grampian, which
has the second-highest number of dispensing doctors in “The accessibility of community pharmacies to provide advice and supply of medicines is invaluable to patients and complements the services provided by GP practices.” Clashes
with GPs over rural pharmacy contracts also reached south of the
border said Graham Jones of Broadway Pharmacy, Lambourne, What breath-taking hypocrisy from Broadway chemist, Graham Jones. From my 25 years experience in dispensing politics, during which I have learned a thing or two, I found that the commonest tactic employed by his fellow chemists when a doctor applied to defence was “It will force a shop to close”. Lies, lies everytime, lies. Nothing but, to quote Graham Jones “blatant scare tactics”. Indeed, I seem to recall one case some years ago, in Evesham where the chemists banded themselves together into a corsortium to attack applicant doctors who wished to dispense to their outlying patients. That very defence was trotted out with due seriousness. I still have all the papers about it. Quite a bundle. A few months after the doctors began dispensing what happened but one of the chemists opened, yes opened, another branch within the town. And I daresay he did it without a blush. Never once in all the years I acted for dispensing practices has a single chemist gone out of business following one of the few dispensing doctor applications put in. Never once, Mr Jones. You have been in the business long enough to know your utterings are hypocritical. It will come as no surprise to anyone to learn that I believe the BMA to be right. Poorly paid, small GP practices in the Highlands do depend on their dispensing income and if CPS spokesman MacKinnon really put patients first, rather than profits, he would understand that a GP patient diagnostic and treatment service is far more important that a simple pill-provision service. Oddly, where there is a dispensing practice, patients can manage very well without a chemist but not, I dare say, without a doctor. It’s quite wrong to dump a chemist upon a community where it puts the medical practice at risk. |