How Pierremont Pharmacy achieved success with allergy screening
by Stephen Foster – Pierremont Pharmacy, Broadstairs, Kent
Allergy is a massive, untapped area within healthcare in the UK. Of the approximately 20m allergic patients in the UK, around 7.5m (37.5%) will be complex cases that require specialist input. This means that 12.5m (62.5%) of these patients should be able to be dealt with perfectly satisfactorily in primary care.
To this end, my colleague, Jag, and I enrolled on the training run by Allergy UK in association with the NPA. We were among the first to register last summer, and went on a day’s training course in London, where we were taught all about allergy, its prevalence, diagnosis and treatment.
The only other requirement was that we successfully completed the CPPE training course on Allergy beforehand. Once we had gained this qualification, we were accredited by Allergy UK and the NPA.
We organised a marketing strategy, which combined advertising in the local press with point of sale marketing in the pharmacy, including leaflets and posters, and the addition to our Practice Leaflet of our new offering.
The service was separated into two different consultations. First, and most important, was the Screening Consultation, as this can account for up to 80% of allergy diagnosis without the need for further testing. Although the recommended retail price was £35.00, we decided to set this at just £20.00, both to encourage customers into the service, and because of the demographics of our area.
As a follow up, there was also a Testing Consultation, where we were able to offer the patient an Immunoglobulin E (IgE) blood test for a further £29.95 if either we were unable to identify the cause at the initial screening, or if the patient purely wanted one to confirm our diagnosis.
There was significant interest very soon after our advertising began, and we have carried out around eighty new patient consultations since we started the service last September. Of those, a fair proportion has gone on to have an allergy blood test, with negative results proving as informative from a diagnostic point of view as positive results.
We have also uncovered a number of cases of food intolerance (around 1 in 2 of the population has an intolerance of some description), and have recommended that the patient cuts out, for example, dairy or wheat from their diet, runs a food diary, and returns with the results a few weeks later for differential diagnosis.
Our allergy service has proved so successful that we have recently begun some further work with Allergy UK to train us to a higher level, enabling us to carry out Skin Prick Testing and Skin Patch Testing, and hope to commission this service with the PCT in the future.
