How do community pharmacy services fit in?
How do community pharmacy services fit in?
The community pharmacy contract requires pharmacy teams to engage in activities that promote health and wellbeing. Service specifications within essential services of public health, signposting, support for self care and healthy living pharmacy provide opportunities to improve patient knowledge and empowerment.
These activities could be seen to fulfil some aspects of social prescribing (e.g. helping or directing people to other agencies or people) but all require the patient to act independently.
This ‘active signposting’ often works best for people with the confidence and skills to find their own way to community groups after a brief intervention, so it is not a full ‘social prescription’.
Community pharmacists who are independent prescribers can use the principles of social prescribing to help them understand the wants and needs of their patients, and to place patients first and centre.
Like GPs, a pharmacist’s expertise lies in addressing the medical needs of patients but in order to provide holistic care, it is also important for them to appreciate, understand and explore each patient’s non-medical needs.
For pharmacy technicians, understanding how social, environmental, and psychological factors can impact patient health can mean you are better placed to provide the best possible patient care, both in terms of supporting the pharmacist and during your own discussions with patients.
In its position statement on social prescribing, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society notes that all members of the pharmacy team have the opportunity to identify and refer people who would benefit from social prescribing.
To find out more about social prescribing and how you can get involved, please explore the links below.
- Royal Pharmaceutical Society Position Statement: bit.ly/48dJqFd
- Personalised Care Institute: personalisedcareinstitute.org.uk
- Personalised Care – social prescribing and community-based support: england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/social-prescribing-summary-guide-updated-june-20.pdf
- King’s Fund: What is social prescribing? kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/long-reads/social-prescribing
Reflective exercise
It is likely that there is a team of social prescribing link workers in the locality where you work. What are the local arrangements in your area for employing social prescribing link workers?
Make a list of the names and contacts for the link workers in your locality.