Politics - Since when

From DotPharmacy.com 30/11/06)

We need support to sell our services to GPs, say pharmacists

Pharmacists have called for extra support to help them rally GPs over practice based commissioning after research revealed three quarters had yet to approach doctors.

A C+D survey of 200 Numark members found only 17 per cent had contacted surgeries over PBC.

Contractors urged the industry stakeholders to help them bridge the communication gap.

Gill Swift, proprietor at the Whitehouse pharmacy, Staffordshire, said: "The lack of discussion with GPs over practice based commissioning is something that needs to be addressed. We need to get the message across that we're both on the same side."

Mimi Lau, director of professional services at Numark, said limited discussions with GPs were linked to a poor understanding of PBC in the profession. She said: "There's a sense of mystery around PBC. Pharmacists have heard the phrase but don't know what it's about. It's still very much early days."

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The hypocrisy and avarice of pharmacy continues.

After decades of seeking every way they could to steal the dispensing practices and income from general practitioners it is now expedient for pharmacy to attempt to cosy up to GPs and hope that all has been forgotten. Why? Because there is more, new money to be made out of Practice Based Commissioning and that money cannot be accessed without the co-operation of GPs.

Are they prepared to relax their opposition to dispensing by doctors just a little in return? Not on your life. Despite the fact that they themselves are fast losing interest in dispensing per se (click) and seem to be attempting to leave it behind they still maintain their stranglehold on the income to be derived from it. This without heed to the undoubted fact that patients would be better served if dispensing were to be carried out, one-stop shop fashion, in the doctor's surgery rather than struggling down the High Street to a shop which just happens to provide medicines.

Sadly, every new action of the representatives of community pharmacy seems to underline the undoubted fact that High Street chemists are just what the name implies, shopkeepers primarily and professionals secondarily. This, no matter how they may be flattered by increasing government attention.

No, Gill Swift, you have amply demonstrated over the years that we are not on the same side - unless, of course, the cash register starts ringing in your ears.

GPs are on the side of the patient and we know whose side the chemists are on!

(1/12/06)