From 31 January 2024 pharmacists across England have been able to supply prescription-only medicines to treat seven common conditions.

The Pharmacy First service takes referrals from general practice into community pharmacies. The pharmacies then provide a minor illness consultation, which may include the supply of a medicine that would otherwise have to be prescribed by a GP. Urgent and Emergency Care settings and 111 can also refer to the service.

For Danielle Lilley, Receptionist at Albert Road GP surgery in Jarrow, it’s made real changes in her day-to-day work.

“… patients are quite shocked when they don’t necessarily need a doctor’s appointment and we can send them to the pharmacy for the symptoms they’re describing.”

Dionne Casey, Assistant Practice Manager can also feel the difference in terms of relieving workload for the practice team.

“Pharmacy First… takes a lot of pressure off the surgery.

“We send a variety of patients over – conditions such as Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs), coughs, colds and sniffles, stomach pains, weight management. We also use them a lot for BP referrals. The results come back to the surgery and that’s brilliant.”

Liam Hawkins, Pharmacist at nearby Boustead Chemist is the qualified professional that will be seeing and treating this type of patient. He says:

“Our local practice make anywhere from six to twelve referrals a day and we try and get them booked in to be seen all on the same day.”

 Identifying the right patients for the Pharmacy First service

The practice team work hard to make sure they are referring the right things to the service and that this is a straightforward and seamless process for the patient. Lorraine Bell, Practice Manager at the practice which has a list size of just under 3500 patients explains:

“All the reception staff make referrals via our clinical system. They have got guides that they look at, so they know what the referral criteria are. This helps them make the correct referral…”

Danielle adds,

“The reception team in this practice will identify patients by checking what the symptoms are, how long they’ve had the symptoms and then we’ll take it from there.

“Our online consultation system enables patients that can’t necessarily ring when the phone lines are open to fill a form in with their symptoms, we’ll receive it via email and then direct them to the correct clinician within 48 hours.”

The secret of the service running smoothly are the digital systems that are set up to support it. Liam explains:

“The practice do send referrals electronically using their digital system. Sometimes the referral will have a little bit of information from when the receptionist has checked the request and it can be quite detailed, sometimes it can be quite vague, it might just say you have pain…

“We’ve transitioned over to an electronic booking service and that allows us to manage the patients, we can add extra details, the sections to add patient phone numbers and also put little notes in just to summarise what the upcoming consultation might be.”

Traditional methods still have their part to play and the surgery and pharmacy have worked together to ensure there are the right safety nets in place to ensure patients get the right care.

Says Liam “Most of the referrals we receive we can treat effectively in the pharmacy however sometimes we do need to escalate that back to the surgery. The most common way of doing that is using a ‘backdoor’ number that the surgery has provided to us. This allows us to get quick access to the reception team and ensure the patient gets booked in at an appropriate time.”

The practice team are reaping the benefits of the service and want to encourage other practice to do the same.

Dionne continues,

“We get very little bounce back from the Phamacy First scheme.

“My advice to practices that aren’t using Pharmacy First is, why aren’t you using it? It’s a fantastic service.”

For more information about using Pharmacy First visit https://www.england.nhs.uk/primary-care/pharmacy/pharmacy-services/pharmacy-first/