Sir, – In writing as a retired GP, Dr Tom O’Rourke makes a number of points contesting the expansion of the clinical role of the pharmacist that I’d like to address (Letters, January 14th).
His assertion that pharmacists receive little or no training in the management of illnesses is inaccurate and not reflective of the modern-day education and training undertaken by pharmacists in Ireland.
His argument around the availability and sale of alternative products at the front of a retail pharmacy is a distraction from the role and responsibility of a community pharmacist.
The five-year integrated degree programmes of pharmacy in the State provide the education and training in clinical therapeutics of cardiovascular, endocrine, respiratory, neurological – among other body systems – where the management of patient illness is central.
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The successful expansion of the role of the pharmacist has happened already through necessity, as seen through the pharmacist’s role in the national immunisation programmes against influenza, Covid-19, pneumonia and shingles.
With the availability of online prescriptions for hormonal contraception, it is often the pharmacist who is requested by the prescriber to risk-assess the patient’s body mass index and blood pressure to prevent against clots.
In my role as a practising pharmacist, I can attest to the professional collaborations with GPs in relation to managing patients with multiple illnesses, where the clinical advice of our community pharmacists is both sought and valued.
Minor ailments are just that – minor ailments – and modern-day pharmacy curriculums provide our pharmacy graduates with the knowledge and skills to deal with a wide variety of patient ailments and conditions.
Allowing patients to be seen and treated by pharmacists for minor ailments in a short timeframe is not just appropriate but patient-centred and will allow GPs to deal with more complex diagnoses and treatment for patients with non-minor ailments.
If our overburdened healthcare system is to improve and become more patient-centred, then more change needs to happen.
Appropriately trained healthcare professionals need to have their training and skills utilised in an optimum manner and the expanded clinical role of the pharmacist will be a key factor to enable the improvement required. – Yours, etc,
Dr THEO RYAN, MPSI,
Assistant Professor
Pharmacy Practice,
School of Pharmacy
and Pharmaceutical
Sciences,
Trinity College Dublin,
Dublin 2.
