Responding to the Department of Health’s consultation ‘No decision about me, without me - Further consultation on proposals to secure shared decision-making’ Pharmacy Voice suggests the absence of references to pharmacy misses a vital element of patient engagement.
Rob Darracott, Chief Executive of Pharmacy Voice said:
“Choices about medicines use are perhaps the most common in the entire healthcare system. Patients need the right information at the right time to enable them to understand and make informed decisions about taking their medicines to obtain maximum benefit from them. The role pharmacists can play in medicines optimisation to deliver improved outcomes and savings is being explored in the New Medicines Service (NMS), and the better targeting of the existing Medicines Use Review service to high risk medicines or specific therapeutic areas.”
In the response, Pharmacy Voice asks for read access to Summary Care Records, with read / write access to Patient Health Records in due course, to enable integration with the Patient Medication Record system held in the community pharmacy.
