Day 2: Going back to basics.

Helen Kilminster
Jun 18, 2019
3 min read

Today started with an epic fail. Remember yesterday how happy I was that I read all my emails but hadn't replied to all the requests? Well turns out I was asked to attend a Sustainability & Transformation Partnership (STP) task and finish group on Primary Care Workforce, as an informal 'starter-for-10', TODAY. At 1pm. Had I planned for this? No. Had I replied? No. Is it important? Hell yes! Quick reply back to organiser to find out it was rescheduled to 10am and the current time of sudden realisation 10:08. I had just finished seeing first block of patients. So miffed. I know I have only myself to blame. Note to self. ALWAYS try and reply to emails.

Many moons ago I started working in my local Boots store as a Saturday girl mainly as a healthcare assistant. I'm from a small town called Droitwich Spa. Everyone knew everyone. The Boots pharmacist store manager knew me by name and so did the independent pharmacist opposite my doctor's surgery. Despite my haphazard journey to become a pharmacist and the various roles throughout my pharmacy career to-date, I have always valued the community pharmacy. As I grew older I understood more of the world and about how important the people and the community was to the pharmacy team.

I have been working at locality/neighbourhood/PCN level for the past few years. All too often community pharmacy is forgotten about at stakeholder engagement events or critical information from strategic local teams never reaches the workforce at the coalface. Being involved at lead board team meetings as a pharmacist in General Practice I can see the barriers and the potential opportunities in equal measure for community pharmacy in Primary Care.

I have always believe pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and supporting pharmacy teams have so much more to offer to their local community than the current payment structure allows. The introduction of PCN at this national scale is a real opportunity to include community pharmacy in a new way. Today I met David Gallier-Harris and Daniel Chalmers to get ideas on engagement of the pharmacy workforce and how can we get other PCN Clinical Directors (CDs) to open the door just to listen to possible solutions in delivering the overall PCN network vision and by means of the Directed Enhanced Service (DES) with community pharmacy. David is keen to get working together for the Local Pharmaceutical Committee (LPC) and the PCNs. Right now we have so many good ideas. I just need some time to reflect and digest the conversations. Also I've had a clinic this afternoon, so I haven't had a chance to think about next steps properly. But I assure you something positive will happen. As if timing couldn't be more perfect NHS England have released some documents about community pharmacy in PCNs today. It's as if I planned this meeting!*

*I haven't. I'm just winging it!

Pharmacists (& soon to be pharmacist, Daniel) ASSEMBLE!

Interestingly there's been a Twitterchat tonight, which I'll have to catch up later as I've been to the dentist straight after work and I've come home to a Bunch'em hair incident with my littlest one. Also there's been another BMA event for PCN CDs in London today with discussions about engagement and stakeholders. PCNs need to think big... then perhaps a bit bigger. It's important to recognise the skillmix already in existence in some General Practice teams and bring others in. There's real value in every sense of term diversity, why not bring the inclusivity to the table and shape personalised care together?

Change will always start with you.