Pharmacists will be able to legally prescribe some medication
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Breakfast Business with Enterprise Ireland on Newstalk.
What recent changes allow pharmacists to prescribe medication?
For decades, pharmacists have been giving free advice and care to their customers, but now they will be able to legally prescribe some medication as well. It's a step change and will hopefully unclog GP surgeries, but also benefit pharmacies economically. They will only be allowed to prescribe eight very specific symptoms or conditions regularly. But it's hoped that the list will grow. And Cuiva Macaulay is the director of pharmacy and superintendent pharmacist with Boots, but also vice president of the Irish Pharmaceutical Union or IPU. Good morning, Cuiva.
Good morning.
Tell us more about the current situation for pharmacists before they were allowed to prescribe. They're only allowed to give verbal advice. Isn't that it?
Yeah, so before this new service came into play, you would have come into your pharmacist and particularly for these eight common conditions, you would have had a conversation with your pharmacist about your symptoms. Pharmacists would have made an assessment. If they could offer you advice or over-the-counter treatment, then that's what they would have done in that instance. But sometimes they then also had to refer you on to your GP again.
for a prescription when actually the reality is the pharmacist was more than capable of having that conversation and completing that treatment journey and definitely more than capable so the new minister said we need to give more powers to the pharmacist and there are eight conditions or illnesses that they can prescribe and it's fairly clearly defined maybe tell us about one or two of them
Yeah, so I think to start by saying the eight conditions that have been chosen have been chosen for a very specific reason. And that is because they tend to be the conditions that pharmacists are having conversations with patients about every single day. And they range from things like, say, allergic rhinitis or hay fever, as we would call it, to other things that are really common in community pharmacy like conjunctivitis, oral thrush, impetigo.
Cold sores.
Cold sores, uncomplicated urinary tract infections. And would you need a prescription for a cold sore?
What are the specific conditions pharmacists can now treat?
So cold sores is a unique one, I suppose, in that bundle of eight because nine times out of ten, the treatment is over the counter. However, what's actually quite important about cold sores is there could be a need to refer still onto a GP colleague just to check that there's no underlying condition if you're getting recurrent cold sores constantly. But for the rest of them, you would have your end-to-end treatment in pharmacy. And again, like that, still, if one of your symptoms... didn't follow the pattern that we would expect, you may also still get referral on to another healthcare colleague. But generally, your treatment will be end-to-end in community pharmacy.
So the eight are thrush, urinary tract infections, shingles, mouth thrush, impetigo, conjunctivitis, cold sores and allergic rhinitis. So does the pharmacist take someone into a separate room to discuss that or how does that happen?
Yeah, it's a really, really good point. So what's very different now is this is a consultation rather than an over-the-counter conversation. And actually, pharmacy is equipped with consultation rooms and they are private areas where, you know, if you've had your flu vaccine or anything like that, you might be already familiar with it. Yeah, or you get your jab. Yes, absolutely. You go into your private area with your trained pharmacist who will ask you a number of questions, make an assessment, a diagnosis and then an appropriate treatment. It's really quite akin to how your conversation would go with the GP.
And I mentioned that it's going to start at eight. Are there negotiations underway to broaden that eight out to maybe double or treble it?
Yeah, this is a big, big moment for pharmacy, as you said, because it's the first time that pharmacists themselves have been recognised as prescribers in their own right for these eight conditions.
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